


In the Shadow of your Wings

by Enochian Things (Salr323)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Endgame Castiel/Dean Winchester, Episode: s11e23 Alpha and Omega, M/M, Pining, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-25 11:38:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 57,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7531294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salr323/pseuds/Enochian%20Things
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean drains his bottle of beer, sets it on the table and gets up, heading for the kitchen.  Maybe to fetch another, maybe to leave.  But Castiel doesn’t want him to go, doesn’t want to leave this conversation unfinished; he remembers his regret of just a few hours ago, that Dean had never known how he loved him.  </p><p>“Wait,” he says and gets to his feet as Dean passes by.  They’re standing close – close enough that Castiel can feel the heat of Dean’s body, the vibrancy of his soul brushing against his grace.   “Dean, I have to tell you something...”</p><p>Set after the S11 finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is complete and I'll be posting one chapter a day until it's all posted. Also, you should know that this is definitely end-game Dean/Castiel. Just sayin' ;)
> 
> Huge thanks to fried_flamingo for the inspiration and the beta.

_Hide me in the shadow of your wings  
From the wicked who do me violence.  
_ Psalm 17

The banishing sigil is powerful.

When Castiel wakes up, he is lying on his back staring at an arched stone ceiling. The light is low, a flickering candlelit gold, and around him voices are whispering. 

It takes him a moment to realize that they’re whispering in Italian.

His body feels leaden, his grace sluggish and out of reach. It’s not that he’s powerless; it’s just that everything has been scrambled. 

He turns his head and is surprised to see a human skull watching him from an alcove in the little stone chamber where he lies prone. Incongruously, it’s wearing a bridal veil. Retreating from the macabre sight, Castiel pushes himself up to sit.

It’s a mistake. The world spins and he’s almost falling back again when a strong hand catches hold of his arm. “Be careful,” a rich voice says, lilting over the Italian words. “Take your time.”

Castiel turns to find a man crouched next to him, holding him up with one hand. Behind him lurks a nervous woman, biting the nail of one finger.

But the man doesn’t look afraid. He considers Castiel with a curious expression on his narrow sun-darkened face. His black hair is shot through with gray, and his eyes are bright and intelligent. He looks like a man in the habit of knowing more than he says and he tips his head to one side as he regards Castiel, “You arrived with some force, I understand.”

“I— Where am I?” Castiel says, and then, remembering, repeats it in Italian. “ _Scusi._ _Dove mi trovo_?”

The man lifts an eyebrow, lips parting in an inquisitive smile. His teeth gleam white against his tan skin. “ _Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco_ ,” he says. “I take it you didn’t come here on purpose?”

Castiel presses a hand to his forehead. “No,” he says in Italian. “I don’t think so.” He looks around and sees, now, that he’s in a crypt. Saint Mary of the Souls of Purgatory at the Arch, the man had called it. He wonders whether the Purgatory connection is simply an ironic coincidence. He wonders if this man, with his hand still on his arm, knows who and what he is. 

His head feels light, not quite attached to his body, but his grace is settling under his skin and, at his back, his wings shift weakly. He’s not been permanently damaged at least, but he’s not quite got his mojo back – as Dean might have said.

And that— 

The sudden assault of memory pierces him, makes him catch his breath in pain. Dean is gone. Gone forever. For a moment, Castiel can’t even breathe around his grief.

“ _Stai bene_?” the man says, his hand tightening on Castiel’s arm. “How can I help you?”

Castiel shakes his head, presses a hand over his chest as if he could push the pain away through force of will. “I’m okay,” he lies, grinding it out through gritted teeth. “ _Grazie_.” And then he remembers Sam and in a panic tries to stand. But his knees buckle and the man grips his arm tighter, the woman catching the other, before he falls.

“Okay, okay,” the man says. “Not so fast. Sit. Sit back down. Sofia – some water?”

They ease Castiel back to the ground and the woman disappears, trotting up the stone steps at one end of the crypt with evident relief. Castiel sits forward, braces his forehead against his knees, and catches his breath.

There is silence. The air down here is still and damp, ancient in a human fashion. He supposes this place would be considered old. Dean would have thought it ancient. Dean…

His eyes prick with the tears he’s yet to shed, held at bay for Sam’s sake; Dean’s last request had been for him to look after Sam and that’s what he’d intended to do. Yet already he’s failed him, failed them both. He takes a deep breath and hears it shudder in his chest.

Next to him, the man clears his throat. “My name is Luca Moretti,” he says. “I’m a Man of Letters, of the Naples chapter.”

Castiel lifts his head, scrubs a hand over his eyes. A Man of Letters? “Do you—” He clears his throat, unsure whether he’s relieved or concerned. “Do you know what I am?”

Luca Moretti raises an eyebrow, one corner of his mouth curling toward a smile. “You’re not the first of your kind I’ve seen since the doors of Heaven closed, _Angele Dei_.”

Angel of God? Not so much, perhaps. God is dead and Castiel has long since put his faith and love in something other than his father: in humanity – in Dean. But he nods in answer to Luca Moretti’s assertion, because it’s close enough to the truth, and says, “My name is Castiel.”

That earns a reaction. Luca sits back on his heels, eyes going wide in recognition. “Well, I’ve heard a lot about you,” he says. __

_I bet you have_ , Castiel thinks. What he says is, “I won’t hurt you. I just need to rest until I can go—” Where? Home? There’s no home without Dean. “Go back,” he says. “I won’t be here long.”

Luca pushes himself to his feet. He’s sparely built, but looks lithe and capable. Castiel notices that he carries a knife in his boot, sees the silver gleam of it as he stands. And Luca moves like a hunter, wary and catlike. He’s no book-bound academic. “You’re a friend of the American hunters?” Luca says. “The Winchester brothers?”

“Yes.” Castiel swallows the knot in his throat. “Yes, they’re my friends.”

Luca circles the crypt, trails a hand over one of the many human skulls watching them. “The recent business,” he says, “with Erebus? That was them? They freed her from her confines?”

“And defeated her,” Castiel says with a flare of defensiveness. “Dean died to destroy the Darkness.”

Luca stops, fixes him with clever eyes. “Dean Winchester is dead?”

“Yes.” He has to clamp his jaw together to keep the grief inside, but he meets Luca’s gaze beat for beat until the other man’s face softens into compassion.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I can see that his loss grieves you deeply.” He moves closer, crouches before Castiel and looks at him intently. “But what kind of a man,” he wonders aloud, “could earn such love from an Angel of God?”

Castiel turns his head away. “Dean Winchester was the best man I ever knew,” he says. “He gave his life to save the world, but I would have given mine a thousand times over to spare him.” He feels tears on his cheeks and doesn’t try to hide them. He’s not ashamed of loving Dean; it’s the purest thing he’s ever done. His only regret is that Dean had never known the depth of that love – that he’d never found the courage to tell him.

Luca sighs. “ _Non ci sono parole per alleviare il dolore_ ,” he says gently, and puts a hand on Castiel’s knee. “I’m very sorry.” 

Castiel just nods and, for a moment, allows himself this human comfort offered by a stranger.

Then it passes and Luca moves his hand away. “I’ve heard many stories about the Winchesters,” he says, “and about Castiel, the angel who fell from grace for them.”

“I imagine you have.”

“There are people who fear you – all of you. Did you know?”

Castiel pushes a hand over his face, scrubs away the tears. At the top of the stairs into the crypt, the woman, Sofia, has appeared, holding a bottle of water. She hesitates before coming down; perhaps she’s one of the people who fear him? “What people?” he says, turning back to Luca. 

“Powerful people. You should be careful.”

Castiel huffs out a bleak laugh. “We’ve been hunted by archangels, leviathan, demons, witches, Satan, and God’s own sister,” he says. “I’m not afraid of ‘people’.”

Luca lifts an eyebrow again – he seems to do that a lot. “Well,” he says, “perhaps it depends on the people?”

“Perhaps,” he says and finds himself smiling. 

Luca catches his eye and mirrors his smile, then shakes his head and looks away.

Castiel feels his wings bristle at his back and he takes a breath. His head is clearing, his power returning. He tries an experimental flex of his wings and the candles in the crypt flicker, their light dimming.

Luca’s gaze swings back to him. “ _Caspita!_ ” he murmurs in astonishment. 

Castiel gets to his feet as Sofia reaches the bottom of the stairs. With an impatient gesture, Luca beckons her over and she hands Castiel the bottle of water.

“Thank you,” he says and takes a sip to be polite. “I should go now. I’m needed.”

Luca nods and after a pause offers his hand to shake. “It has been fascinating to meet you, Castiel.” He puts an Italian emphasis on the end of his name; Castiel likes the way it sounds. “Perhaps you will come back one day? I have … many questions.”

“Thank you,” he says. “I— I would like to see more of Naples, when I have the time. Last time I visited, it was mostly Greek.” 

Luca exchanges a wide-eyed glance with Sofia. “Okay,” he says. “Well, I will happily give you a tour of the more modern Roman sites.”

Castiel smiles. “Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for your kindness.” 

And with a beat of his wings he is gone.

***

Eventually, Dean finds a signal. And thank fuck for that, because otherwise he doesn’t know how he’d have figured out any of this.

He gets a signal, but Sam isn’t answering and he deleted Cas’s number after Lucifer took the wheel – just in case he did something dumb, like drunk-dialing Cas and begging him to cast the bastard out.

But it’s okay, because Google Maps tells him where he is: Mizumoto Japanese Stroll Garden, Springfield, Missouri. It’s a pretty random place for the ultimate showdown between the God and the Darkness but, hey, welcome to the life of Dean Winchester.

Oh, and also? His mom’s in the passenger seat of the crappy Toyota he’s just stolen, wearing his jacket over her nightgown. 

“So this is a _telephone_?” she says, incredulous as she turns his phone over in her hands. 

“Uh, yeah,” he says, as if his smart phone is the most mind-blowing thing about the situation. “And it’s a computer, and a camera, and like a tiny TV too.”

“Incredible.”

He scratches at the back of his head and keeps driving. He has no idea what to say to her, how to explain this. He wishes Sam was here, or Cas. Both, preferably. He could use the backup. “So, uh,” he tries again, “you don’t remember anything?”

Out the corner of his eye he sees her turn to look at him. “No. The last thing I remember was…” She shudders. “There was fire, and Sam—”

“Sam’s fine,” Dean assures her. “I took care of him, Mom. He’s fine.”

She reaches out and puts a hand on his leg. “Of course you did,” she says. “Of course you did, Dean.”

He swallows, but it’s hard to choke back the emotion. He clears his throat. “You, ah, you heard of the Men of Letters?”

The hand on his leg goes still. “How do you know about them?”

“I know about a lot of things,” he says. A lot more than she’d like, probably.

His mom lets out a slow breath. “The Men of Letters were wiped out before I was born,” she says. “I’d hoped you and Sam would never know anything about them. About any of it.”

“I know,” he says quietly. But there’s so much to tell he doesn’t even know where to begin. Or whether he should even try to explain it all; the last thing his mom wanted was him and Sammy to be raised as hunters and now they’re so much more than that – maybe even something worse in her eyes. He decides to start with something basic, “So, um, guess who found the Men of Letter’s secret hide out?”

“The Men of Letters bunker?” she says. “Really?”

She sounds impressed and Dean feels stupidly proud. “That’s what me and Sammy call home these days. It’s pretty awesome. Kinda like the Bat Cave.”

“It has bats?”

“No like—You know, _Batman_?”

“The TV show?”

“Right. No, not— It’s, uh, there are movies too now. It’s cooler.” 

After a pause she says, “So there’s just the two of you living there?”

“Uh-huh. Well, and Cas too now. Hopefully.” Now that he’s back. It gives him a warm glow right in the center of his chest knowing that Cas is back. He feels his smile broaden. “Yeah, you’ll like Cas.”

His mom smiles too. “I’m sure I will. Who is she, exactly?”

“He,” Dean corrects. “He’s, uh… Actually, he’s an angel.” He spares a quick look, wants to see how she takes that. “A bona fide angel of the Lord.”

Her eyes are round. “An _angel_?”

“Yup.” He smiles. “Remember how you always used to say angels were watching over me?”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t think they were _real_.”

“Well neither did I until Cas came along.”

“And he… He watches over you?”

Dean smiles at the thought, turns his eyes back to the road. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess he does. I mean, he’s always there for us, he always has our backs. Hell, he’s died bloody for us a couple times.” He feels a swell of warmth, a sudden longing to see him again; he missed Cas so bad these last months. “Actually, turns out most angels are total douches, but Cas? He’s something else. Best friend I ever had.”

His mom’s silent for a couple beats, then she says, “Well then, I can’t wait to meet him.”

The Impala is parked out front of the bunker when they pull up and his mom looks at it with a bemused expression. “You’re still driving this old thing?” she says. “Don’t you have flying cars or something, yet?”

Dean laughs, giddy with anticipation of what’s to come. Not only is he about to pull another ‘back from the dead’ routine, but he’s going to get to see Sam’s face when Mary walks in. “Come on,” he says, and leads her down to the bunker’s doorway. 

But he knows the moment it opens that something’s wrong. It’s too quiet, the lights are out, and his gun’s in his hand before he’s reached the top step.

“Dean?” his mom says, quiet behind him.

“Stay here.”

He takes the steps slowly, walking silently. He thinks, _Lucifer?_ It’s the only loose thread and the bastard knows his way into the bunker now. _Sonofabitch_.

From the bottom of the steps, he sees two things: blood on the floor and an angel banishing sigil dripping down the wall. If it was Lucifer, then someone – Sam? – tried to banish him. But too late, from the look of the blood.

He thinks of his mom upstairs and his heart kicks up a notch. She didn’t come back from the dead for this, to see Sammy dead at the hands of the goddamn Devil. “Sammy?” he calls, low like he can somehow call out to him secretly. 

There’s a noise behind him. “ _Dean_?”

He spins around, keeps the gun raised because for a moment it looks like him, like Lucifer. Then he blinks, “Cas?”

His blade is drawn, held low, and his face looks anguished. “Is it you?” he says, like he can’t believe it. “Dean, is it you?”

“Yeah.” Despite everything he smiles at the broken relief on Cas’s face. “Yeah it’s me. I made it.”

Cas’s shoulders sag and he has to brace himself against the table. “That’s—” And then he’s moving, wrapping Dean in a bone-crushing hug. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m okay,” he says, hugging back as best he can with a Glock in one hand. “I’m okay, buddy.”

Cas takes in a breath, Dean can actually feel it shuddering in his chest, before he pushes himself away, his face very serious. “Dean, something’s happened to Sam. I think he’s been abducted.”

And it’s like the bottom falls out of his world. Again. “What?” is all he can say because, Jesus, can’t they just ever catch a fucking break? He’s just saved the goddamn world. What more does it want from him? “The hell happened?”

Cas shakes his head. “I don’t know. Sam and I came back here after…” He clears his throat. “ _After_. And there was a woman waiting. I don’t know who she was; I didn’t recognize her, and she banished me immediately. It was a powerful sigil and I was … displaced … for some time. I’ve only just got back myself.” His eyes move down to the blood on the floor. “It’s Sam’s,” he said. “It’s not much, less than a pint. I don’t think he’s dead.”

“Dean?” His mom’s voice echoes down from the top of the stairs and Cas glances up, smiting hand raised and a gleam of power behind his eyes.

“It’s okay,” Dean says, and grabs hold of his wrist. “It’s okay. She’s with me.”

Cas tilts his head as he lowers his hand. “Dean,” he says, quietly, “that’s your _mother_.”

“Yeah. Nice work, Sherlock.”

“It’s hardly a matter of deduction,” Cas says, bemused. “I’ve met her before, remember? In the past.”

Ignoring that complication, Dean just says, “Amara brought her back. As a— a parting gift, I guess.” Cas narrows his eyes and Dean knows exactly what he’s thinking. “It _is_ her,” he insists. “Cas, it is. I know it.” He puts his hand over his heart. “I can feel it.”

Cas regards him for a moment, then nods. “Alright,” he says and his shoulders shift, like he’s powering down. 

“You got your mojo back, huh?” Dean can’t help the little frisson of excitement he always feels running down his spine when Cas is all juiced up and awesome. 

“To some extent, yes,” Cas says. “When God healed the damage Amara did to both Lucifer and me, He— Well, my grace is fully restored, even if Heaven is still locked.”

“Well good,” Dean’s gaze drifts back to the bloody floor. “Looks like we’re gonna need it.” 

***

Castiel sits at the war room table while Dean and his mother confer in the kitchen. He studies the label on the bottle of water he brought back from Naples and tries not to listen in, tries to respect their privacy, but it’s clearly an argument. He hears: “He’s my son, Dean” and “I was hunting long before you were born!” from Mary Winchester and, from Dean, “We only just got you back!”

The gist of the conversation is clear. Mary wants to help find Sam; Dean wants to keep her safe in the bunker. Not that the bunker was any protection for Sam. He glances up and sees where Amara burned out the protective sigils. It will take some work to restore them. 

They’ve cleaned up the blood, but there’s still a ghost of the unusual banishing sigil on the white wall and Castiel studies it, trying to piece together who the woman might have been. His memory is fractional, just a glimpse of a youthful body and fair hair. He’d not sensed a demon, though, or a witch. He thinks she was human. Possibly a hunter? Although why she would feel the need to ambush Sam and abduct him, Castiel can’t work out.

The words of Luca Moretti return to him: _there are people who fear you – all of you. Did you know?_

“Hey,” Dean says, and taps Castiel on the shoulder with a bottle of beer, offering it to him.

Castiel takes it out of politeness and smiles as Dean takes a seat opposite him at the table. “How’s your mother?”

“Freaked,” Dean says and flips the top off his beer. “Worried about Sam. And taking a shower.”

“The, um, clothes?” Castiel says. “They were suitable?”

Dean huffs a laugh. “Yeah, she said they were fine. Thanks, Cas.” He smiles around the lip of his beer bottle. “Buying underwear for my mom? That’s gotta be beyond the call, man.”

Castiel doesn’t bother trying to fathom the complexity of why that would be the case, given all that he’s done for Dean; he’s learned that there are some human things that just _are_. Besides, he has more important things on his mind. “While I was gone,” he says, “I learned something.”

“Yeah?” 

In the low light, Dean’s eyes glitter brightly. Castiel has always loved how bright they are, how full of life. He feels his chest constrict, again, with relief that Dean is alive – and with fear, given the now certain knowledge of how unbearable it would be to lose him.

“You gonna tell me?” Dean says smiling as he takes another pull on his beer, “or do you want me to guess?”

“You won’t guess,” Castiel says.

Another smile, this one fonder. “So go on, spill.”

“The sigil sent me to Naples, to a crypt there, where I—”

“They have crypts in Florida?” 

Castiel stares for a moment. “Naples, _Italy_.” 

“Oh.” Dean’s eyebrows rise. “Cool.” He waves his beer bottle. “Carry on.”

“Well, I met someone there. He— His name is Luca Moretti. He’s a member of the Naples chapter of the Men of Letters.”

That seems to snag Dean’s attention, because he lowers his beer. “They have Italian Men of Letters?”

“Of course. In its heyday, it was a global organization,” Castiel says. “It stands to reason that some chapters are still functioning.”

“Hmm,” Dean says. “And what did Mr. Naples have to say? Something about Sam?”

“Not directly, no. But he did say that there are people who fear us – you, your brother and me. He said we should be careful.”

Dean takes another drink. “That ain’t much to go on, Cas.”

“I know.” He spreads his hands on the table, looks at them stretched out over the map. He feels helpless, again. “I wish I could be of more use.”

“Dude…” Dean says, as if that word alone is reproach. “I’m just glad you’re back, man.”

Cas glances up, meets those bright eyes of his. “Thank you.”

“I missed you,” Dean says, swallowing the admission with another mouthful of beer. “These last few months, I missed you, man.”

“I missed you too,” Castiel says. “I— I always miss you, when we’re apart.”

Dean gives a slight laugh and shifts in his chair like Castiel has said something unintentionally amusing, or socially inappropriate. “Right.”

Silence falls. In the distance, he can hear the running of water through pipes, the tick-tick of the generator powering the bunker. Dean drains his bottle of beer, sets it on the table and gets up, heading for the kitchen. Maybe to fetch another, maybe to leave. But Castiel doesn’t want him to go, doesn’t want to leave this conversation unfinished; he remembers his regret of just a few hours ago, that Dean had never known how he loved him. 

“Wait,” he says and gets to his feet as Dean passes by. They’re standing close – close enough that Castiel can feel the heat of Dean’s body, the vibrancy of his soul brushing against his grace. “Dean, I have to tell you something.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” 

Castiel hesitates, and then presses on past his doubt. “You said I’m a brother to you. To you and Sam.”

“You are. You’re family, man.”

Castiel nods, lifts his eyes to hold Dean’s – to make him understand. “I appreciate that,” he says. “And Sam means as much to me as any brother could, but you…” 

Dean lifts his chin like he’s sensing danger, his expression turning wary. 

It throws Castiel off for a moment, but he’s determined to carry on. “Dean, what I feel for you—”

“C’mon, man,” Dean says, backing up a step. He’s smiling, but it’s a sharp, alarmed expression.

“—it’s not brotherhood, Dean. It’s different. It’s more than that. What I feel for you—”

“Don’t do this, Cas. Don’t make it awkward.”

That stops him, his all-too-human heart jumping uncertainly in his chest. “I’m not trying to make anything awkward. I just want you to know that I love—”

“Don’t.” Dean shakes his head, rubbing at the back of his neck. There’s a dark flush in his cheeks. “Dude, we’re brothers, okay? That’s what this is. You and me? We’re _brothers_. We’d die for each other. We’re family. But we’re not—” His glance skitters away from Castiel, his brow drawn down into a frown. “It’s not that, okay? _I’m_ not that. It’s not what’s going on here.”

Castiel stays still. His chest hurts and it’s much like that moment in Nora’s house, when he realized he’d misunderstood everything. “I, um,” he says, “I don’t expect you to…” He clears his throat. “I just wanted you to know.”

“Jesus,” Dean says, laughing. It hurts, that laugh, it cuts like a knife. “Cas, I don’t even… Sam is _gone_. My mom just came back from the dead. I haven’t slept in, like, a week. And _this_ is the moment you choose for your freakin’ Hallmark moment?” 

When he puts it like that, Castiel supposes he must seem ridiculous. “I’m sorry,” he says. “You’re right. It was inconsiderate.” He sits back down, harder than he intended. “I was just—” It’s not an excuse; it’s barely a coherent reason. “I thought you were dead.” 

“Well I’m not,” Dean says. “So get your shit together, man. Sam’s the priority here.”

He nods, keeps his eyes fixed on the map on the war room table. The image is starting to blur, but he doesn’t dare blink. “Of course,” he says, rough-voiced. “I apologize.”

Dean doesn’t answer and for a moment it’s just silence again. Then Dean moves, heading past Castiel toward the kitchen. He touches his shoulder as he passes with a brief press of his fingers. It feels like pity and Castiel hates it. 

Getting to his feet he says, “I’ll make some enquiries.”

Dean stops. “What enquiries?” he says from the doorway, half-turned. 

“About Sam. You should do the same, see if anyone in town saw anything. The woman in the bunker was human, so she must have driven here. Someone might have seen an unusual car.”

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says, turning back to face him. His eyes are focused somewhere near Castiel’s shoulder, his brow still creased into a frown. “But where are you—?”

“I’ll be back when I find something,” he says and stretches his wings.

“Cas—”

He doesn’t wait to hear Dean’s protest; he can’t bear to stay any longer.


	2. Chapter 2

Castiel doesn’t know why he returns to Naples. Mostly he wants to get away from Dean, from his most recent failures, and Naples is about as different from Lebanon, Kansas as it is possible to get.

He finds himself standing on the street outside the _Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco_ , looking up at its stone exterior. Fat winged cherubs sit atop stone columns that line the door, stone skulls and bones to either side. Death and life – so very human.

The church is open, but he doesn’t go inside, instead he turns onto the busy street outside. It’s narrow, shaded by buildings rising on each side in sandy yellow stone, their balconies verdant with hanging plants and flowers. Shops spill their wares and customers across the street, and there are people everywhere, people from all over the world – he hears a dozen languages, but mostly Italian, loud and animated. The whole place is vibrant, overflowing with human life. 

Castiel feels hollow at the center of it, like a void. In his chest, everything is quiet and dark. 

Unlike the diners he’s visited with Dean, Neapolitan cafés sit their patrons on the crowded street outside. The air is full of chatter, of the aromas of food and people, and Castiel walks among it all unnoticed.

It’s hot, he supposes. People are dressed for summer, but his vessel doesn’t feel the heat. It feels the emptiness, though, the clanging echo that Lucifer’s forced removal left behind. __

 _I don’t even know what you are,_ his brother had told him once. _If I can possess you like this, are you even an angel anymore?_

Castiel has no answer to the question, so he just keeps walking.

It’s only when he notices Luca Moretti sitting in the shade outside one of the little cafés, a coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other, that Castiel understands what brought him back to this city.

Luca’s alone, reading something intently, occasionally knocking ash from the end of his cigarette and blowing smoke up into the hazy morning light. 

“Luca Moretti,” Castiel says by way of greeting as he comes to stand near the table.

Luca looks up, surprised. His eyes crease around the edges as he smiles. “Castiel,” he says, playing the name slowly over his tongue. “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon. Or maybe ever.”

Castiel shrugs his agreement, hunches into his coat. “I need your help,” he says. “Again.”

Waving a hand at the seat opposite him, Luca invites him to sit. “Do you drink coffee?”

“No,” Castiel says. “That is, I can. I don’t need—”

“Donato!” Luca calls to the waiter. “ _Un caffè per favore_.” 

Castiel sits, and Donato, a young man, brings the coffee with a smile and a wink for Luca before he disappears back inside. 

“They know you here,” Castiel says, watching the waiter weave his way back through the tables.

“Of course.” Luca pulls on the cigarette, blows the smoke out toward the street. “So, what help do you need?”

“My friend, Sam Winchester? He’s disappeared. We’re trying to find him, but we don’t have much to go on. I thought, perhaps, the Men of Letters network might have heard something.”

Luca watches him with those all seeing eyes of his. “We?” he says. “Who is ‘we’?”

“Dean and—”

“You said Dean Winchester was dead.”

Castiel nods and lifts up his tiny cup of coffee. Dean, he thinks, would be unimpressed by the lack of volume. “I was mistaken,” he says, and takes a sip. It doesn’t taste like much beyond its component parts. “Dean survived.”

“And Erebus? The Darkness?”

“Gone.” He lowers his voice and leans closer, across the small table. “And so is God. Not dead, but gone.”

Luca smiles, runs his tongue over his lips. “He was already gone, no?”

“Yes,” Castiel says. “He hasn’t been here for a long time. Not in any way that really mattered.”

Luca shifts forward, elbows on the table so that they’re almost nose to nose. “Did you meet him?” he says. “God?”

“We— we had little to say to each other,” Castiel says. “My priorities lie elsewhere, now.”

“With Dean Winchester.” Luca puts his cigarette to his lips, blows a short breath of smoke away from Castiel. 

“Is that what you’ve heard?”

Luca smiles. “No. It’s what I saw when I met you last time, Castiel. Am I wrong?”

He thinks back to his last exchange with Dean – his euphoric joy at Dean’s survival, the heavy weight of his rejection, of the certain knowledge that Castiel will never have the closeness he yearns for, the final consummation of the bond they forged in Hell. “Dean is— I was made to serve God,” he says, in an attempt to explain, “but I _choose_ to serve Dean.”

“Serve him?” Luca leans back, regards Castiel with his too clever eyes. “Strange, for an Angel of God to serve a man, isn’t it? I thought you would tell me you loved him.”

“I do.”

“As a servant loves his master?” Luca sounds doubtful. “Or as a man loves his brother?”

Castiel regards him for a moment, the curiosity in his eyes, the way he seems to be looking into him – to be trying to work free some truth. It’s rare, he realizes, for anyone to show half so much interest in him. “Neither of those things,” he says without looking away. 

“As lovers then?”

“No.” He shakes his head, and now he does avert his eyes. He feels foolish; Dean had thought him foolish. “No, it’s not that. Dean would never— To Dean, I’m a brother.”

Luca takes another pull on his cigarette, smiling. “Now we have it,” he says. “Now we have the story right: Castiel, the angel who fell for love unrequited.”

“You think it’s funny?” He gets to his feet, angry at himself for being drawn in. “I shouldn’t have come here, I don’t know—”

“Stop.” Luca grabs his wrist to stay him. “I’m sorry. I’m not laughing, Castiel. Not at you… Come, sit down. Maybe I can help you? To find Dean’s brother, I mean.”

He hesitates, Luca’s fingers still wrapped gently around his arm. Luca moves his thumb across the inside of Castiel’s wrist and he shivers; he craves human contact so much, yet it’s so rarely given unless in violence. Sometimes he feels starved of it.

When he sits back down, Luca keeps hold of his wrist for a moment before squeezing it and letting go. “The Men of Letters,” he says, “has been fragmented for decades, but we still have links with other chapters. It will take some time, but I will enquire where I can to see if anyone knows what has become of Sam Winchester.” His expression is neutral, but Castiel can tell there are things he’s not saying. “The Winchesters have been on our radar for some years. They are…reckless, yes? Their obsessive love for each other has threatened the world too many times.” He takes a final pull on his cigarette and stubs it out in the ashtray. “But you know that already, I think? What they sacrifice for each other. _Who_ they sacrifice.”

Castiel doesn’t answer that, although he understands Luca’s meaning. Castiel, himself, has always – will always – come second to Sam in Dean’s eyes. Everything comes second to Sam. “They’re brothers,” he says. “That’s as it’s meant to be.”

Luca gets to his feet. “I don’t think so,” he says. From his pocket, he pulls a pair of sunglasses and slips them on, and then he offers his hand to Castiel. “Come.”

“Where?”

“To the library.”

“Is that your chapter house?”

He nods. “It’s safe there. I warded it myself.” This time, when he smiles, the expression is sadder. “And I’m the only remaining member. We won’t be disturbed.”

The library is a short walk from the café through the crowded streets, and Luca guides him with a hand on his back. It’s not something Dean would do, but Luca Moretti does not seem to be bound by Dean Winchester’s inhibitions, and when Castiel looks at him, curious, Luca just smiles. “You must tell me about Dean,” he says as they walk together. “Later, yes? We will drink and you will tell me everything about Dean Winchester. It will help.”

He’s dubious. “How will that help to find Sam?”

Luca laughs. “Help _you_!” he says. “The world does not revolve around the Winchesters, Castiel.”

He suspects Luca may be wrong about that.

When they arrive at the library, Castiel finds that it’s housed in a building so old he can feel its age in the worn stone. “Originally Roman,” Luca says as he pushes opens a heavy door. “At least, some of it. It was a refuge for hunters for centuries, before the Men of Letters appropriated it.”

Inside the thick stone walls are shelves upon shelves of books, the aroma of cool stone, old paper and leather intoxicating. Threadbare carpets run between the stacks, and from a narrow staircase that spirals up at one end of the room, sunlight spills. 

“This way,” Luca says and Castiel follows, letting his eyes run over the books – Sam would be enchanted – and follows Luca up the stairs. The room above is small, with a door that leads to another beyond it. And he’s surprised to find, amid the weighty age of the building, that the room contains a desk and a computer, alongside a battered old armchair and a narrow window that looks out onto a shady courtyard below. “Take a seat,” Luca says as he sits down at the computer and starts to type. “I’ll be a few minutes, and then we can talk.”

Castiel does as he’s told, looks through the narrow doorway past a rumpled bed and beyond that through another window looking out over the city.

And then, suddenly, he can hear Dean pray. __

_Cas_ , he says, but no other words follow, just a vague sense of frustration and longing that Castiel can’t interpret.

He closes his eyes and waits for Luca to finish. With luck, he’ll have some news for Dean when he returns. He’ll be able to help.

***

It’s three days before Dean sees Cas again. Three days of fruitless calls to everyone he knows; nobody has seen anything, although they all have a lot of questions about the sun’s strange behavior. He plays ignorant. It’s easier than explaining even half the truth.

His mom mostly sits in the kitchen looking through John’s hunting journal with a tight expression on her face. That’s another story too long to tell, and he figures she’ll learn all that she needs from his journal. Dean can fill in the ending, although he doesn’t really want to.

They hit the grocery store a couple times and his mom looks around like a tourist; it’s amazing, Dean thinks, how much has changed in the world since he was a kid. It makes him feel old.

It’s right after they get back from the store, while they’re still putting supplies away, that he feels the old familiar shift in air pressure, the frisson of static power, that speaks of Cas zapping in. Dean turns, pleased. It’s been too long since Cas had that kind of juice. 

But when he sees Cas’s tight expression, the way his eyes slip away from his, the smile falls from his lips and he remembers the weird way they’d parted. Those things Cas had said, the way it had made him feel, all jittery inside... He tenses up immediately. Cas has no right to say crap like that. It’s not cool.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says. Then, to his mom, who’s watching him with wary eyes, “I’m sorry if I alarmed you, Mrs. Winchester.”

She shakes her head, chases a smile onto her lips. “It’s fine, and please don’t call me Mrs. Winchester. It’s Mary.”

“Alright,” he says, offering a small smile of his own. “Mary.”

And that makes Dean feel strange too; the smile Cas gives his mom is too gentle. He can’t explain it, but it tips something over inside him. It’s all right and wrong at the same time. 

“Where’ve you been?” Dean says, and it comes out sharper than he wanted. 

“Researching,” Cas says, turning away from Mary. “I think I have a lead on Sam.”

“Yeah?” The beat of relief he feels overcomes everything else; his mom’s face lights up too. “What?”

Cas runs his fingers through his hair, leaving it disheveled. “The Men of Letters – apparently they’re interested in you and your brother.”

“Interested, how?”

“Not in a good way.” He gives a little shake of his head. “Luca says they’re _un po' all'antica_.”

“Atlantica?”

“What?”

“You said they were— You said ‘atlantica’.”

“Sorry, I was—” Cas clears his throat, embarrassed. “Apologies, I meant old-fashioned. Luca says the Men of Letters can be old-fashioned, and no fan of hunters.”

“The Men of Letters never were,” his mom says, pulling out a chair at the table. She looks up at Cas, her expression tight. “Does your friend think they’ve taken Sam? And, if so, where?”

“We’ve found no evidence, yet, Mary,” Cas says. “But we’re still looking. Luca thinks it’s possible that, if Sam’s disappearance is connected with the Men of Letters, he could be being held locally.” He glances at Dean when he adds, “Apparently the bunker wasn’t the only property owned by the American chapter of the Men of Letters. I thought, perhaps, there might be a record here of other facilities in the United States?”

“Yeah, I can look,” Dean says, and heads to the fridge for a beer. “But you know what the filing system is like in this place. Sam’s the expert.” He drops down at the table next to his mom and flips the top off his beer. 

Under the table, he feels his mom nudge his foot and looks up. He frowns, _What?_

She darts her eyes to Cas with an expectant look. 

Dean has no idea what she means and tells her so with a helpless shake of his head.

Rolling her eyes, his mom says, “Castiel, have a seat. Can I get you a drink or anything?” She fixes Dean with a look. “A beer, maybe?”

He almost laughs out loud at the idea of playing host to Cas. “Mom—” he says, about to explain that angels don’t need feeding, when Cas says, 

“Thank you, a glass of water would be welcome.”

Dean stares at him. “A glass of water?”

“What? I’m thirsty.”

“Since when?”

“It’s hot in Naples,” Cas says.

“You’re a freakin’ angel!”

Mary gets to her feet, the scraping back of her chair silencing them both. “Castiel,” she says, going to the skink to fill a glass with water, “thank you for what you’re doing for Sam. I appreciate it.”

“Of course,” Cas says, moving around the table to take the glass from her hand. “Sam’s like a brother to me, Mary. I would do anything for him.”

She smiles. “Thank you,” she says again and presses his hand. Dean watches her, the way she touches Cas, with inexplicable fascination. “Dean said you were a good friend, and I can see that you are.”

Cas glances over at him, his gaze just shy of meeting his eyes. “I try to be,” he says, and takes a long drink from the glass.

And it’s not that Dean’s watching the way his throat works as he swallows, it’s just weird that he’s drinking at all; angels don’t get thirsty.

“I thought you had your mojo back,” he says, when Cas lowers the glass. “I mean, I can see you got your wings, but since when do you get thirsty?”

“I’m— Luca suggested I learn to enjoy my vessel,” Cas says, which, Dean thinks, is a fucking _weird_ thing for Luca to suggest. “It’s enjoyable to drink, to do human things, sometimes.” __

 _Human things?_ There’s something about that Dean doesn’t like, which is probably why he says, “Well, so long as you’re having _fun_ , man.”

It hits like a blow. He sees it in the way Cas recoils, chastised. “Of course, Sam remains my first priority.”

And Dean feels like the jerk he is. He doesn’t even know why he said it; the dude’s allowed a glass of _water_ , for Christ’s sake. It’s just— Dean’s itching for something. He doesn’t know what it is, but it’s making him fucking antsy. It’s making him want to pick a fight with Cas for no damn reason.

“I should go,” Cas says, and sets his glass down. “We’re going to visit a couple of other European chapters.” __

 _We_. _We’re_ going. “Who’s ‘we’?” Dean says.

Cas frowns, confused. “Me and Luca. Luca Moretti. I told you, he’s a Man of—”

“Yeah, right. Yeah, I was just—” He clears his throat. “Keep in touch, man.”

“Of course,” Cas says and for a moment they just look at each other. 

Dean wants to say, _Don’t go. Hang out for a while. I miss you, man._ But he doesn’t. 

After a stretch of silence, Cas presses his lips together and looks down for a moment before turning toward Dean’s mom. “Mary,” he says, “I’ll be back as soon as I know anything.”

Then he’s gone again, leaving his fucking water glass on the counter. Dean thinks he can see a mark where his lips touched it.

Mary looks at him across the table. “What’s going on, Dean?”

“What?”

“I thought you said Castiel was your friend.”

“I did. He is.”

She doesn’t say anything, just lifts her eyebrows. “So,” she says, when Dean says no more, “where do we start looking for other Men of Letters facilities?”

***

The Constantinople Men of Letters chapter house proves even less helpful than the one in Vatican City. Castiel is unsurprised. Given their propensity to cling to the city’s obsolete name, it’s hardly likely that they’d have their fingers on the pulse of the moment. The old men sitting amid their dusty stacks of books tut at the name Winchester, but hold no insight into Sam’s fate.

“Let’s go home,” Luca says, as they stand in the street outside and listen to the call to prayer. “I haven’t introduced you to Neapolitan pizza yet.”

Castiel looks up at the minarets across the street and wonders if the imam can tell that God has left the building. He says, “Dean doesn’t approve.”

“Of Neapolitan pizza?”

He smiles, glances over and sees the same expression in Luca’s eyes. “He doesn’t think I should be distracted from the search for Sam by things like pizza.”

Luca shakes his head and reaches for the cigarettes in his jacket, tips one into his hand and puts it between his lips. “What do you think?” he says and strikes a match.

“I think cigarettes will kill you.”

Luca smiles as he blows out a stream of smoke. “I think something else will kill me first.” He drops the match and puts two fingers to Castiel’s forehead. “Come on,” he says. “Take me home, _Angelo_.”

It’s the work of a moment, though it leaves Castiel tired in a way it didn’t when Heaven was open and he could draw on all its power. Now, he must rely only on his grace. 

He’s brought them to _Via dei Tribunali_ , and Luca looks around with a nod and says, “Yes, good. You will like this, Castiel.”

They sit on a terrace on the street, the air warm and alive with conversation. The pizza is nothing like the greasy things Dean savors, covered in processed meats and tasteless cheese. It is wholesome and flavorful, light and delicious. Castiel isn’t sure what to make of the fact that he’s learning to enjoy eating, or that it tastes more like food than molecules despite the presence of his grace. 

When he mentions this to Luca, his friend says, “Perhaps you are becoming more intimate with your body? It is part of you now, not only a suit of meat which you inhabit. You are learning its ways, and it is learning yours.”

“I’ve been alone in my vessel for many years,” he points out. “But this is new.”

Luca tips his head, his eyes holding Castiel’s. “Then something else has changed.”

He finds Luca’s clear-eyed stare captivating. It’s as if Luca is seeing all of him and that he, Castiel, is seeing all of Luca. There are no hidden meanings, no ambiguities between them. So it’s not a surprise when Luca says, “Do you know that you are an attractive man, Castiel? Do you notice the way people look at you, sometimes?”

“No,” he says, in truth. 

Luca nods, unsurprised. “Because you only care how Dean Winchester looks at you, yes?”

It’s true, he supposes. But he doesn’t want to admit it; it feels ridiculous.

“Love can make you blind,” Luca says, smiling with his eyes. “I know that. I’ve been blind too many times for a man my age.”

“There is someone you love?” Castiel asks, curious. “Who is it?”

“Now? No one. But I have known it, in the past.”

Castiel nods, although he’s certain that what he feels for Dean is not something that could ever fade. He can’t imagine looking back and saying ‘Once, I loved Dean Winchester’. What he feels is branded into his ribs, into his bloody, beating heart. “I will always love Dean,” he says, confesses it with his eyes fixed on the half eaten pizza before him. “Sometimes I think it’s a blessing, to know that feeling. More often, these days, I think it might be a curse.”

“Of course,” Luca says with an easy wave of his hand. “Love is both: blessing and curse. But it is not a prison, it does not constrain you. And there are ways to ease the pain of it.”

“What ways?”

Luca’s smile slips into something warmer, more intimate. “I could show you, if you like.” He reaches over and runs his fingers over Castiel’s hand. “Dean Winchester doesn’t own you, Castiel. No matter how much you love him.”

“I—” He looks down at Luca’s hand, his palm rough and warm against Castiel’s knuckles. His intention is clear and Castiel appreciates that clarity more than he can express. “I’ve never really considered… Once,” he says, “there was a woman. April. It— it didn’t end well.”

Luca says, “Did you enjoy it?”

“Yes.” He makes a face. “Until she killed me.” 

“Killed you…?”

“Turned out she was a Reaper.”

Luca shakes his head, not hiding his smile. “Castiel,” he says, with that heavy emphasis on the ‘el’ that Castiel enjoys. “Think about it, yes? You are full of... of tension, of sadness. Of love, unreturned. Sometimes it is good just to let go, to open yourself to pleasure for the sake of it.”

“That sounds like hedonism,” Castiel says, and he knows where that leads.

Luca laughs, bright and loud. “We live in a godless world, Castiel. What are you afraid of?”

“I’m not afraid…”

“No?” Luca releases his hand, sits back in his chair. “I think you are. Your life – your place in this world – it is all for Dean Winchester. You fell from grace for him. You rebelled against Heaven for him. And I think you are afraid to live without him.”

“I’m not without him. I have a place in his life. I’m—”

“But if he doesn’t want _this_ and you do,” Luca says, “if to him you are only a brother, then you must live this part of your life elsewhere. Or it will die and you will be nothing but resentful and desolate.” Leaning back in, he says, “You believe you were made to serve, but I believe you were made to live. This is life, Castiel. And it is yours to live as you wish; you do not belong to Dean Winchester.” Luca pulls his wallet from his jacket and leaves twenty euros on the table. “Think about it, Castiel.”

Standing, he walks away from the terrace on which they’re eating and Castiel watches him go. Luca’s offer bemuses him, but not in the way Dean bemuses him, or April or Nora had confused him. He understands what Luca is offering, what he doesn’t understand is why.

“Are you finished, sir?” the waiter asks, scooping up the money.

“Yes,” he says, and pushes to his feet. “I’m—” He flexes his wings, but where would he go? Back to the bunker and Dean’s complicated intensity, his unfocussed longing that promises much but gives nothing? Back to Dean’s absolute denial that this – the soul-deep love Castiel carries in his heart – is even worthy of acknowledgment? __

 _It’s not that, okay?_ I’m _not that. It’s not what’s going on here._

And he knows he can’t. Luca is right. For better or worse, when he fell – and he fell the moment he laid a hand on Dean – he became something more than a servant. 

He may not serve Heaven anymore, but he doesn’t serve Dean Winchester either. And if he’s going to live, to be more than a shadow in Dean’s life, then he needs to answer the question that has haunted him for too long. __

_What are you, Castiel?_

He catches up with Luca further down the street, grabs hold of his arm. 

Luca has a blade in his hand and at Castiel’s throat before he can blink, his fist curled into his coat. But his fierce look fades in an instant. “ _Mi dispiace_ ,” he says, holding the blade away from Castiel’s throat. “You surprised me.”

Castiel just looks at him, unsure what to say, how to begin this. Luckily, Luca seems to be adept at such things – there’s no fumbling, no uncertainty, none of Dean’s awkward shame. He simply says, “Ah, I see,” and slips the blade beneath his jacket. He doesn’t release Castiel’s coat, however, uses it to pull him closer. There are people all around, bustling along the street. No one seems to notice, or care, what they’re doing. Dean, Castiel thinks, would run a mile from such a scene. __

_Dean…_

Castiel wets his lips, nervous. “I’ll always love Dean,” he says, to be clear. “Always. He’s everything to me.”

“I know.” Luca dips his eyes to Castiel’s mouth, then lets them rove back to his face. “That’s okay; this isn’t that kind of love.” 

And then he kisses him on the mouth, not gently, and Castiel feels something inside him break and skip free. He doesn’t know whether it’s grief or joy.


	3. Chapter 3

Luca has Castiel’s face in his hands, runs his thumbs beneath his eyes, and says, “You’re very beautiful, you know.”

They’re in the bedroom above the library, clothes strewn across the floor. It’s night and the lights from the sprawling city of Naples glitter outside the window that’s left wide to catch the slight sea breeze. The air is humid and Castiel feels sweat prickle across his skin where he lies, naked, on Luca’s bed.

“Beautiful in my true form, perhaps,” he says. He doesn’t see much beauty in his vessel; now, when he catches sight of his reflection, he mostly sees Lucifer looking back. His brother had liked to preen in front of mirrors.

Luca gives a low rumble in the back of his throat and presses his mouth against Castiel’s collar bone. “I would like to see your true form, Castiel.” 

The sensation makes gooseflesh rise on his skin despite the heat, and he lifts a hand to run it along Luca’s side. He’s not as muscled as Dean, leaner and wirier, but his body is firm and warm and its closeness is arousing. “It would burn out your eyes,” he says as Luca nuzzles his neck, teeth nipping his skin. “My true form would burn out your eyes. My true voice would make your ears bleed.”

“And all of that,” Luca says, lifting his head, “all of that is contained inside here?” His hand spreads flat across Castiel’s chest and there is awe in his eyes. Desire too; Luca takes no pain to hide it.

Dean, Castiel realizes with shock, has looked at him like this – with the same mix of awe and desire. Perhaps that’s why he pulls Luca down and kisses him, rolls them so that he’s got him on his back, one arm pinned to the bed next to his head. Castiel smiles and it feels dangerous. “Yes,” he says, lets his voice go deep with the power he has to keep banked, “yes, all of that is contained within my vessel.”

Luca wets his lips. “Do you know,” he says, his bright eyes shining, “how incredibly erotic that is?”

Castiel might have laughed at his honesty if his own desire wasn’t beating rampant in his chest. He can feel it burning through him, even into his grace. Hot, liquid, mindless need.

“What do you want, Castiel?” Luca gives a slow smile, but his chest is rising and falling fast, his breath quick. “What do you want?” __

 _Dean_ , he thinks, _like this_. It’s always Dean.

“What do you want _now_?” Luca says, as if he can read Castiel’s thoughts. “Tell me what you _want_.”

What he wants… What he _wants_? Too much. “I might do something wrong,” he says, uncertain against the rapid pulse of his desires. “I might hurt you.”

Beneath him, Luca shifts, rocks his hips up against Castiel’s, sets a slow rhythm. Each measured thrust is a jolt of lightening at the base of Castiel’s spine, making his eyes flutter closed. “I trust you,” Luca says. “Whatever you want, just take it.”

Castiel can’t help the way his body responds, grinding down against Luca until a noise he hardly recognizes as his own growls low in his throat. “I want… I— _God_.”

“Take it,” Luca hisses, his free hand knotting into Castiel’s hair and pulling him down to kiss him roughly, deeply. “Fucking _take it_ , Castiel.”

And it’s like something inside his head short-circuits, something human and too long denied. He lets go of Luca’s arm, surges up and out of his grip. He’s breathing hard, they both are, and for a moment their eyes meet. Luca’s are hungry and open and wanting and it’s enough. It’s too much; Castiel can barely keep himself together. 

Roughly, he manhandles Luca onto his stomach. “This,” he says, slides a palm from his shoulder blades down the long length of his spine. “I want you like this. I want to—”

“Yes.” Luca buries his face into the bed and growls, “Yes. Fucking _yes_.”

And then Castiel has his hands on Luca’s hips, his mind slick with want as he pulls him up and back and then— 

Oh God, _then_. 

His grace flares wild, barely under control as they move together in a hard and frantic rhythm. And he feels powerful and free. And _alive_. 

When he hears Luca shout, feels him shudder around him, Castiel lets go. He lets go of everything. Head flung back, fingers still bruising on Luca’s hips, he chokes back the only words in his throat – _Dean, Dean, Dean_ – and cries out something inarticulate instead. It’s practically a sob.

The universe stops. It all whites out. 

And then it’s rushing back in too fast and he’s gasping hot breaths against the back of Luca’s neck, shivering through aftershocks that won’t stop.

“ _Oh mio Dio_ ,” Luca murmurs. “ _Mio Dio, Castiel, e'stato incredibile_ …”

“Yes,” he says, “yes.” And then, as his faculties begin to return, “Are you alright? I didn’t hurt you?”

Luca moves, rolls onto his back and stretches long and lean across the sheets. “Of course not,” he says, reaching for the cigarettes he keeps next to the bed. “That was unusual in many ways.”

“Unusual?”

“Good,” Luca assures him with a smile and lights his cigarette. “ _Molto bravo_.”

Castiel sinks down beside him in the rumpled bed and gazes out through the open window, lets the Neapolitan sea breeze cool his skin. For the first time in a long time, he feels alive and whole. “Thank you,” he says after a while, turns to watch Luca blow smoke up into the air. “That was— I feel much better.”

Luca smiles. “Yes,” he says. “I bet you do.”

***

When Sam wakes up his first thought is of Dean.

But Dean’s dead. His brother is gone and there’s no coming back this time. Billie would have made sure of it; she’d made that perfectly clear.

The thought makes it difficult to open his eyes, to give a damn about where he is and what’s happening to him. It’s not the first time he’s grieved his brother, of course, and he knows that life will move on and that so will he eventually. But it’s the first time he’s known, with absolute certainty, that Dean is _never_ coming back.

Even Cas had said as much, and if anyone wants Dean back as much as him it’s Cas.

So, no. Dean’s gone and, whatever the hell this is that’s happening to him, Sam’s going to have to handle it alone.

He opens his eyes to the same four walls he’s been looking at since he arrived here – wherever here is. Clean, white: a hospital of some kind. The only difference this time is that when he opens his eyes he finds he’s not alone.

“Good morning.” The voice belongs to the same woman who shot him. She’s sitting in a chair next to his bed looking neat and preppy, with her hair tied back and her narrow face too perfect to be pretty. “I hope you’re feeling better?” 

Sam grunts and sits up in bed. His left arm is still strapped, but there’s not much pain. “What’s going on?” he says, which pretty much covers all bases. “Who are you?”

“You don’t remember?” 

“Let’s pretend I don’t,” Sam says. He glances up, out through the high window. He can see sky, but not much else. He could be anywhere.

“My name’s Toni Bevell,” she says. “I’m a Woman of Letters, London chapter.”

He nods; he remembers that much. “And you shot me because…?”

“Because you’re a dangerous man and I wasn’t taking any chances.” She tips her head to regard him carefully. “You have a reputation, Sam Winchester.”

“Yeah? Then you’ll know I’m a Man of Letters too. My grandfather was—”

“I know who your grandfather was,” she says. “And your status as a Man of Letters is debatable.”

“Debatable?”

“Simply stumbling upon the Kansas bunker hardly qualifies as membership.”

He ignores that; it’s not worth his breath to argue. Instead, he says, “Where are we? England?” He has no memory of how he got here, of anything after she shot him.

She smiles, a slight curl of her perfect lips. “Not yet. But you’re well enough to travel now and the aeroplane’s waiting.”

“Look,” he says, trying to sound authoritative from the hospital bed. “I get that things have been— That Dean and I…” His throat closes around the mention of his brother and he has to swallow a couple times before he continues. “Dean and I, we’ve done some stupid things. I get it. But if you’re a Woman of Letters, then we’re on the same side here. This…” He gestures at his injured arm, at the bed and the barred windows. “It’s not necessary. If you want me to come talk to your boss, I’ll come.”

Her expression has changed. She looks uncomfortable and it makes her seem a little more human. “That’s not quite what this is,” she says, and glances down at her fingers. “I’m sorry, Sam. This is more like an arrest than a friendly chat.”

“An arrest? For what? Saving the world too many times?”

“For endangering the world too many times.”

Sam shakes his head. “This is ridiculous. You can’t arrest me; you have no jurisdiction—”

“The Men of Letters make their own jurisdiction, Sam.” She gets to her feet, smooths a hand over her hair. “I’ll have your clothes sent in. Please get dressed.”

“And if I don’t?”

Her gaze dips down to his chest and back again. “Then you’ll make the trip in your hospital gown.”

“I—”

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ve seen worse.” 

“You know, in this country,” he says, as she turns for the door, “I’ve got the right to a phone call.”

She looks at him over her shoulder, a flash of something dark in her eyes. “Don’t think for a moment that I‘m going to let you contact the _angel_. Just how stupid do you think I am? Oh, and yes, before you ask, this facility is warded against all comers. Demons, witches, fallen angels: all your friends, in fact.”

“Those aren’t my friends.”

“Aren’t they?” And it doesn’t even seem like an ironic question; it sounds like she’s really asking. Sam doesn’t answer and after a silent beat she says, “I’m sorry about your brother, Sam. I know that’s a hard loss to bear.” Then she pulls open the door – he sees a glimpse of anonymous white corridor beyond – and she’s gone.

Sam sinks back on the bed, at a loss. Arrested? Transported to _England_ , of all places? He stares at the ceiling for a moment, and then a thought strikes. He might not be able to phone Cas, and Cas might not be able to find him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t pray.

“Cas,” he says softly. “Cas, it’s Sam. Um, if you can hear me, I’m being taken to London, England. The Men of Letters have arrested me. I think I’m still in the US right now, but I’ll be on a plane soon. The only hard information I have is a name: Toni Bevell. She’s British, by the accent.” He pauses for a moment, and then adds, “I hope you’re okay, man. I’m good for now. Stay safe.”

He lets out a breath and closes his eyes, waiting for his clothes to arrive, and tries not to think about how Dean isn’t coming after him. How he’s not there at all.

It’s just him and Cas now, and they’ll have to figure it out together.

***

“Dean.”

Cas’s voice, right behind him, makes Dean start so violently he knocks his head on Baby’s open hood. “Jesus!” he snaps, and ducks out from beneath it, rubbing the crown of his head. “Give a guy some warning next time, man.”

“Apologies,” Cas says, glancing around the bunker’s garage like he’s never been there before. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Dean just grunts and grabs a rag to wipe the oil from his hands. “Long time no see, by the way,” he says, because it’s been a freakin’ _week_ since Cas was last here. “Been busy have we?”

“I’ve, um—yes.” Cas looks a little unsettled by the question, runs a hand through his hair; it’s already more unkempt than usual and he’s not helping it much. “I have some news, actually. About Sam. That’s what I’ve been busy doing. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Dean echoes. And when Cas doesn’t say any more, he prompts, “So what’s the news?”

“Oh. Yes, he— Sam prayed to me.”

Dean catches his breath. “So he’s alive. Is he okay?”

“Yes, he’s alive and well.”

“Thank _God_!” Dean almost punches the air in relief. “I should go tell Mom, she—”

“Wait,” Cas says, “there’s more. Apparently Sam’s been ‘arrested’ by one of the Men of Letters chapters.”

“ _What_?”

“That’s what he said, and he gave me a name: Toni Bevell.”

“Tony Bevell? He’s a Man of Letters?”

“She’s a Woman of Letters,” Cas says. “Luca tracked her down. Lady Antonia Bevell: she’s attached to the London chapter.” 

Dean scratches a hand through his hair, lets the name sink in. “ _Lady_ Antonia Bevell?”

“Luca says her work is hush-hush, even by the standards of the Men of Letters, so he couldn’t find out much. But the fact that they sent her to arrest Sam – and presumably you – says something about the gravity of the situation.” 

“Well, whatever. How do we get him out of there?”

Cas shakes his head. “I don’t think it will be easy. We’ve been to her house but—”

“We? As in you and Luigi?” 

“Me and _Luca_ , yes.”

Dean stares for a moment, feeling something sharp press right under his breastbone. He takes a shallow breath. “And you didn’t think of, I don’t know, taking _me_ instead?”

“Dean, I can’t keep—” Cas purses his lips. “It was easier to go with Luca. The time zone, for a start, makes it more convenient. Besides, Luca’s familiar with European chapters, and he speaks excellent English.”

“Oh, and I don’t?”

Cas huffs out an irritable sigh. “Dean, you’re busy with your mother. I didn’t think you’d want to leave her to—”

“Sam’s my _brother_.”

“Which is why I’m here!” There’s a flare of angelic impatience in his voice, a flicker of angel blades behind his eyes. 

Dean’s taken aback; he can’t remember the last time Cas flexed his wings at him like that. “Okay,” he says, hands raised palms up. “Okay, so what did you find out?”

“The London chapter of the Men of Letters has several houses across the city,” Cas says, calmer now, “but none of them know anything about Sam.”

“You spoke to them all?”

He gives a slight smile. “I left that to Luca; he’s a Man of Letters, after all.”

“Right. And speaks ‘excellent English’.”

If he notices, Cas chooses to ignore the jibe. “He had to be subtle, of course, but he’s certain that Sam isn’t in England yet. Which means he’s still in transit.”

“Right.” He gets it. “So we might be able to get to him before they lock him in their fucking medieval dungeon.”

“Yes. Luca thinks they’ll take a private airplane to avoid ‘border controls’.” 

His air quotes might have made Dean smile, once, but – swear to God – if he hears ‘Luca’ one more time… 

“And I thought you could contact Crowley, see if he has any useful information.”

“Crowley? Why?”

“London was his stomping ground for centuries,” Cas reminds him. “He might know something about the Men of Letters chapter – especially about where they’d hold a prisoner.”

Which actually makes a whole lot of sense. “Okay, I’ll see if he’s surfaced. I figure he owes me one for saving the damn world.”

Cas tips his head in agreement. “And Luca’s using his contacts to check on private flights landing in the London area over the next couple of days.”

Of course he is. Fucking Luca has the sun shining out of his ass, apparently. He’s about to say as much when Cas puts a tentative hand on Dean’s shoulder. 

“Dean,” he says, his hand warm through Dean’s shirt, “don’t worry about Sam. I’m convinced he’s well, and that we’ll find him soon.” He looks rueful for a moment and says, “I just wish I had a way of telling him that you’re alive. He must still think you’re dead, and that—” He looks down, fingers tightening for a moment. “That will be hard for him.”

“Yeah,” Dean says and there’s something about the gentleness in Cas’s voice, the compassion, that defuses all his earlier irritation. It tugs at the part of him that misses Cas so damn much. “But, hey, I guess we don’t want to tip our hand, right? If the Brits think I’m dead then they won’t be expecting me.”

“That’s true,” Cas says and takes his hand away, lets his arm hang at his side like he doesn’t know what else to do with it. 

Stupidly, Dean misses his touch as soon as it’s gone. “So, um,” he says, “you wanna come up for a beer? We got something to celebrate, right? Sam’s okay and I—” He clears his throat. “I dunno, man, it’s like I’ve hardly seen you since— You know, since Lucifer got booted.”

“Oh.” Cas looks surprised, then uncomfortable. “I would like that, Dean, but—”

“C’mon, man, one beer won’t hurt you.”

“You’re right, beer can’t hurt me. But I, uh, I actually have plans already.”

Dean just stares. “Plans?” he says. “What plans?”

“Um. Dinner plans.”

“Like—” He almost laughs, but stops himself at the last moment. “Like a _date_?”

“Yes, I suppose.” Awkward, Cas rubs at the side of his neck and that’s when Dean notices it: a little red mark just above his collar. 

“Dude,” he says, his mouth curling into a smile. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

Dean reaches over, nudges Cas’s hand away and tugs at his collar (he makes a point of not noticing the warmth of his skin against his knuckles) and says, “Is that a _hickey_?” 

“A what?”

“You sly dog,” Dean laughs and punches him on the shoulder. “You’ve got a girl.”

Cas just stares at him. “Dean—”

“No, no it’s fine, man. It’s cool.” He nods. “In Naples right? Some hot Italian chick?” He sucks air through his teeth. “Sweet.”

Cas just looks at him for a long moment, like he’s trying to figure something out, and then he turns away with a flutter of frustration. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, I have a date in Naples. You’re right.”

It’s a relief, actually – weird, but a relief. That’s what Dean tells himself. Not that he’s been thinking that much about Cas’s awkward confession the day Dean came back from the dead, but this makes everything easy again. And it explains why Cas has been staying away so long and it’s got nothing to do with what Dean said that night. He smiles, waggles his eyebrows suggestively. “Sowing some wild oats, huh, buddy?”

“I should go,” Cas says.

“Wait, hang on.” He grabs his arm before he disappears, firms his fingers into his bicep. “Dude, seriously, are you – you know – using protection? And I don’t mean a freakin’ angel blade, man.”

It’s actually kinda cute, the way the flush rises up Cas’s neck from beneath his collar, the startled deer-in-headlights expression in his eyes. “I’m an angel, Dean,” he says after a moment. “I can’t catch human diseases of any kind. Or transmit them, unless I choose to.”

“Right,” Dean says, “but, uh, you’re not firing blanks, right?”

“I don’t possess any fire arms…”

“Jesus, Cas. I mean, you could still get her pregnant, right? And I’m pretty sure that’s frowned on in angel circles. In human ones too, by the way. Don’t be a baby daddy, man.”

Cas is silent for a long moment, then says, “You’re right, Dean, the fathering of Nephilim is expressly forbidden. Although, with God and his archangels gone, I’m not sure who would really care anymore. But that’s a moot point. I can assure you, I have no plans to become any baby’s father.”

“Right,” Dean says with another smile, “but no one _means_ to, dude. And if she says she’s on the pill—”

“I have to go,” Cas says. “I’m already late.”

“For dinner? It’s not even one o’clock.”

Cas gives him another one of those long steady looks. “In Naples, Dean. In Italy.”

“Oh. Right, time zones. Well— Listen, thanks for the update on Sam. I’ll, uh… I’ll tell Mom and call Crowley. At least we know he’s okay, right?”

“And not in the hands of anything inherently evil,” Cas agrees. “Yes.”

Dean snorts. “I dunno, man. They _are_ English.”

“English people aren’t evil, Dean. They can’t help the accent.”

“Right.” Dean laughs, and it’s stupid how fond he feels of Cas right then. Cas on his way to a date with some hot Italian chick, Cas looking out for Sammy like he’s his own damn brother, Cas with his fucked-up hair and kindly eyes. “Listen, man,” he says, and cuffs him gently on the jaw with his knuckles, “you have a good night.” He straightens his tie, brushes a hand over his coat. “And, uh, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, okay?” He gives him a wink and a friendly punch on the shoulder.

Cas just smiles, a brief flash of inward-turned humor, and says, “I’ll see you soon, Dean. Give my regards to your mother.”

And then he’s gone again and the bunker feels hollower for his absence.


	4. Chapter 4

“So I’m guessing Sam’s biding his time,” Dean says as he pulls onto US 36 East and heads for the dive bar in Smith Center where Crowley’s agreed to meet them. “But at least we know where he’s headed, even if we don’t know where he is right now.”

His mom’s relief is as palpable as his own. “Thank heaven,” she says. “If that’s even the right expression anymore?” Out the corner of his eye, Dean can see her shake her head. “And Castiel can actually hear people pray?”

“It’s kinda like celestial voicemail,” he says. “I pray to him, but he can’t, you know, send me a message back.” He smiles at the thought, at the strange intimacy of it. “Usually he just zaps in, though, if it’s urgent.”

“Zaps in,” she echoes.

“If he’s not busy.” He glances at his watch, wonders how Cas is getting on with his date; it must be late in Italy now. The thought makes him smile and kinda ache at the same time. He supposes it’s a bit like seeing your kid brother with his first girlfriend. Although he thinks he teased Sammy about it more, but Cas is different, he’s—

“… to have gotten over what was bothering you.”

He glances over at his mom. “Sorry, what?”

“I said you seem to have gotten over what was bothering you, earlier. About Castiel.”

Eyes back on the road, he says, “What do you mean? Nothing was bothering me.”

“Come on,” she says. “I might be newly raised from the dead, Dean, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Last time Castiel was here you could have cut the tension with a knife.” Out the corner of his eye, he sees her run her fingers through her hair, pull it back like she’s going to put it into a ponytail, then let go. “What was going on?”

It’s kinda awkward that she noticed; he’d thought he’d done a good job of keeping it to himself. “It was—” He’s on the verge of sweeping it aside like he would if she was Sam, but then he glances over again and his mom is watching him with this intent kind of interest. And he thinks, _Amara gave me what I needed most_. And he remembers all the years – his whole life – when he didn’t have this: someone to confide in, someone to be there for him no matter what, someone to love him unconditionally. 

There’s a sudden knot in his throat and he looks away, feeling stupid and raw. 

“Dean?” his mom says gently. “What is it?”

“Nah,” he says, sniffing, “it’s just—” He shakes his head, but his mom’s still listening, still interested, and he’s never had that before. He clears his throat. “It’s just, me and Cas, we’re friends. I mean we’re tight. He’s— I love him like a brother, you know?”

“Like a brother,” his mom says. “Okay.”

“And, uh…” Dean laughs, feels his cheeks burn. “The, uh, the thing you need to know about Cas is that he’s freakin’ awesome – I mean, you should see him smite a demon – but he’s… Sometimes he just doesn’t get it.”

“Get what?”

“The world. People. He misunderstands things, you know? People-things. He can’t help it, he’s only been around us a few years, but sometimes it makes things awkward.” He taps his fingers on the steering wheel, keeps his eyes on the long, empty road. “And, uh, I guess he was pretty cut up when he thought I was dead, so when I came back he said some things…”

His mom’s quiet for a moment, and then says, “What kind of things?” __

 __He closes his eyes, briefly, against the tightness in his chest when he remembers the earnestness in Cas’s voice, the look on his face when Dean had brushed him off. “Oh, you know,” he says, “about his feelings or whatever.”

“His feelings for you?”

Dean finds he can’t look at her, rubs at the back of his neck. “Yeah, he— I mean it’s Cas, right? He gets this shit wrong all the time.”

“Wrong in what—?”

“But it’s okay,” Dean says, pushing the other feelings aside. “Because he’s hooking up with some chick in Italy right now, so… It’s all cool.”

“ _Some chick_?”

“Ah.” Dean gives her an awkward glance; right, he’s talking to his _mom_. “I mean, you know, a woman. Who, I’m sure, Cas respects a lot. He’s very respectful.”

Even with his eyes on the road, he can sense her looking at him for a long moment, her brow creased into a frown. “And you’re okay with that?”

“Yeah,” Dean says, because why the hell wouldn’t he be? “It’s about time. Dude deserves a little fun.”

“I just thought—”

“What?” He looks at her, feels something tighten at the base of his skull. 

“Nothing,” she says and stares out the passenger window. “So this is Smith Center, huh?”

He watches her for a moment longer, trying to figure out what she meant, but they’re getting into town now and he has to pay attention. “Yeah, heart of the metropolis,” he says and turns them onto North Jefferson, heading toward Crowley’s bar. 

***

They eat in a small restaurant with a veranda that overlooks the entire Bay of Naples. The view is spectacular, even to an angel who witnessed the birth of the cosmos.

Perhaps it’s the company, or the warm Italian air, or the wine, but Castiel feels good.

“God was much more hands on, back then,” he’s saying, explaining his role in the story of Isaac. “Although, frankly, I thought that whole thing was something of a ‘dick move’ on God’s part – as they would say in America.” He smiles. “ _Bastardata_ , perhaps?”

Luca laughs and picks up a piece of calamari from his plate, slips it into his mouth and chews. “You are calling God a dick?”

“No, I just didn’t agree with all his decisions.” He shrugs, his coat feeling heavy on his shoulders this evening; he’s been noticing it more, recently, the weight of all his old clothes. “But I suppose I always was rebellious.”

“ _Mio angelo caduto_ ,” Luca smiles with a glint in his eye. 

Castiel shakes his head and looks out over the water. “You think the notion is romantic,” he says. “But don’t forget, Lucifer was a fallen angel too. I think you’d like him a lot less than me.”

“I don’t know,” Luca says, and there’s humor in his voice. “What does he look like?”

It’s an interesting question. “Rather like me, recently.” He turns his eyes back on Luca and notices the way his body shifts into something subtly defensive. “I’m not him,” Castiel assures him. “You’d know if I was.”

Luca’s eyes narrow. “But you were?”

Castiel studies his face, tries to determine how much he knows. “I suppose that’s common knowledge among the Men of Letters?”

“Rumors,” Luca admits, picking up another piece of calamari. “Certain alarm bells ring when Satan starts walking the earth.”

“He’s gone now,” Castiel says, looking down at himself. His eyes catch on his old coat, his jacket and tie. “But sometimes I wonder how many people – angels – will look at me and just see the devil.”

Luca’s silent, chewing his food. Then he reaches for his wine and takes a long swallow. “You know what I see when I look at you?”

He lifts an eyebrow. “Trouble?”

Luca grins, but says, “I see a tourist. You look like an American tourist in your sensible beige rain coat.” He shrugs, takes another sip of wine. “At least you’re not wearing _training shoes_.” He says the words in English, layers them with disgust.

“I suppose that’s better than looking like Satan.”

“Marginally,” Luca says, smiling around his glass as he takes another mouthful of wine. “I like you better without any clothes.”

Castiel doesn’t really have an answer to that, but luckily he doesn’t need to find one because at that moment Luca’s phone rings. He sees the number and glances up at Castiel with a serious expression as he takes the call. “Yes?” He listens intently, says only “Yes” and “Okay” and “When?” 

Then he ends the call and reaches immediately for the cigarettes in his pocket, lighting one up. 

“Was that one of your contacts?” 

“Yes. Sam Winchester is in England – he landed an hour ago at Leavesden. It’s a disused airfield north west of London.”

“I have to tell Dean.” He gets to his feet. “We should go now, try to free Sam—”

“Wait.” Luca grabs his hand, stops him. “I can’t go with you. My contact wants to meet me. Now.” 

And there’s something in his expression, in his voice, that gives Castiel pause. “You’re afraid,” he says, sitting down again.

“Not afraid. Wary.”

“Why?” 

Luca smiles, it’s sharp like the blade of a knife. “Because Alessandro was afraid and couldn’t tell me this thing over the phone.”

And now Castiel is torn. “I— Then I should go with you,” he says. “If it’s dangerous…”

“No.” Luca puts money on the table, drains the rest of his wine and gets to his feet. “You should tell Dean what we know. Just don’t go to England yet, not until I’ve met with Alessandro.” 

“Then it’s about Sam, what he wants to tell you?”

“I think so, yes.”

Outside the restaurant, they stand in the shadow of a little alley at the side of the building. Castiel is uneasy, as if there’s something crawling over his skin. “I don’t like this,” he says. “I think I should come with you.”

“I’ve lived forty years without your protection, Castiel. I don’t need it now.” Luca opens his jacket, reveals the weapons hidden there. “Go to Dean. Tell him what we know and then meet me back at the library. I should be less than an hour. Then I’ll know more.” His smile turns predatory and he takes a step closer, pushing Castiel up against the wall. “We have some unfinished business together, yes?”

“Luca, this is hardly the time for—”

But Luca’s hands are already in his hair, his lips on Castiel’s, and his whole body is pressing him lean and hard against the wall. “This, my friend,” Luca says, “is always the _best_ time.” He kisses him again, hungrily, and then pulls away. “One hour, Castiel,” he says with a wink. “Don’t be late.” And then he disappears into the shadows.

It takes Castiel a moment to catch his breath before he goes in search of Dean.

***

“Listen,” Deans says as they pull up outside the single story bar with its crumbling brickwork and yellow peeling paint, “Crowley’s a jerk but he’s kinda on our side.” 

“He’s a _demon_ ,” his mom says, in exactly the same tone Sam uses on him when he thinks he’s full of bullcrap.

Dean kills the engine and listens to it tick as it cools down. “Yeah, he’s a demon. And he’s a dick – sorry, douchebag – but he’s not gonna hurt us. Well, not today. Probably.”

His mom shakes her head, tucks her fingers into the pockets of the blue hoody Cas had picked up from Walmart. “I gotta say, Dean, working with demons…”

“I know,” he says. “Believe me, Mom, I know. But things are different than when you—”

She looks over at him, her face impassive. “Than when I was _murdered_ by a demon?”

“Yeah,” he says, and turns away. “Look, if Crowley can help us find Sammy, I ain’t turning that down.”

“We’ll see,” his mom says, and pushes open the passenger door. “We’ll see if he can help us.”

Inside, the bar isn’t much better than outside. The floor is old linoleum and the tables are sticky. There’s music playing, something from the eighties – his mom turns her head, like she recognizes it – and there’re a couple of leathery old men propping up one end of the bar. Dean has no idea why Crowley chose the place, unless it’s just for the irony of the name: _Dante’s_.

He and his mom sit at the bar and Dean orders them both a beer. 

“Is he here?” Mary says, eyeing the men at the far end of the room.

“Not yet. Don’t worry, he’ll—”

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing a lady friend,” Crowley says, about two inches from Dean’s ear.

He almost falls off his damn stall. “Fuck,” he growls, then winces at his mom. “Sorry.” He’s _never_ going to get used to this. 

But she’s not looking at him. Her eyes are fixed on Crowley, with his neat metrosexual beard and sharp suit. _If looks could kill_ , Dean thinks. 

Crowley smiles his shark smile. “Well, well, if it isn’t mommy dearest. How interesting.” He slides a look at Dean. “You been making deals again, Squirrel?”

“It was Amara,” Dean says with a flat look. “A parting gift – and you’re welcome, by the way.”

Crowley takes a seat and waves to the barman. “Gotta say I was surprised to get your call, Dean. Delighted, naturally.”

“Right, whatever. I didn’t call for a chat,” Dean says. “I need your help.”

“As always.”

He ignores that. “What do you know about the Men of Letters?”

“They’re arseholes,” he says. “Anything else I can help you with?”

“The London branch,” Dean says. “You ever had any run-ins with them?”

Crowley sits back in his seat, eyes Dean with renewed interest, and then lets his gaze drift over to his mom. “Why on Earth would you want to know about _them_?”

“Just tell me what—” 

“They’ve got Sam,” his mom says. 

Great. Fantastic. “Mom—”

“What?” she says. “The macho posturing was boring. Let’s just get down to it, shall we?” She flicks her glance to Crowley. “Can you help us or not, demon?”

“I can,” Crowley says. “The question is, _will_ I?”

Dean shakes his head. “See? Now you’ve done it, he’ll never—”

And then there it is, that frisson of displaced air and raw power that always raises the hairs on the back of his neck. 

“Dean,” Cas says from behind him.

He can’t help smiling as he turns around – it feels like the cavalry have arrived. “Cas, what are you doing here, man? I thought you had a hot date?”

Cas is standing just behind his shoulder, looking uneasy – his tie’s askew, his hair’s all over the place. “Yes, well,” he says, “something came up.”

Dean winks. “That’s generally the idea, Casanova.”

Shifting awkwardly, Cas just pulls his coat a little closer and _holy shit, really?_ Dean makes a point of not looking down to check. __

“Listen,” Cas says, “one of Luca’s contacts got in touch. He says Sam’s already in England.”

“Where?” his mom says. 

“He landed at an airfield near London an hour ago, but—”

Dean’s on his feet; there’s nothing else to say. “Okay, let’s go.”

But Cas shakes his head. “No, we can’t. Not yet.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because Luca’s meeting his contact right now; there’s something more going on here, Dean. Something Luca doesn’t understand, but we can’t move until he’s found out.”

“The hell we can’t.” Dean’s already heading for the door; he’ll need supplies from the trunk, weapons. “Cas, just strap your damn wings on, man, and—” 

Cas has him by the shirt, hauling him back around. “I said _no,_ Dean _._ ” He’s very close; they’re almost nose-to-nose. “Not yet.”

“But Sam—”

“Sam is fine. Luca thinks—”

And that’s it. That is fucking _it_. He shoves Cas away. “Who the fuck cares what Luca thinks, man? Jesus.” 

Cas doesn’t back off, his face is still bullish. “We need more information, Dean. Luca knows the Men of Letters and he—”

“Luca, Luca! I’m sick of fucking _Luca_!” 

The room goes silent. Cas clamps his jaw together, but he’s radiating anger. Dean can practically see the shadows of his wings darken the room.

“Christ,” Dean says, trying to force a laugh through the angry tension in his chest. “You talk about him so much, man, anyone would think you were screwing _him_ and not—”

Cas flinches, embarrassed, and it’s obvious. It’s _so_ fucking obvious. Dean feels like someone just punched the air out of his lungs, he can’t even catch a breath.

Into the silence that falls, Crowley says, “Oh, so your angel’s got a boyfriend? Awkward.”

“Shut up, Crowley,” Cas growls.

“Okay,” Dean clears his throat, can’t explain why his face is so hot. “That’s— You know. Whatever. Cool.” And it’s all he’s got because his stomach has twisted into a knot and he doesn’t understand why he feels like he’s been whammied by some kind of fucking hex bag.

“Luca should be back soon,” Cas says. “I’m going to meet him in the—”

“Great,” Dean says, because that’s already too much detail. “Yeah, that’s great.”

There’s another silence, then Cas clears his throat. “Well, I’ll be in touch tomorrow unless there’s a need to act sooner.”

Dean makes himself look up. Cas half meets his eye. It’s awkward as fuck. “It’s Sammy,” Dean says, in case the sonofabitch has forgotten what matters here. “Cas, it’s Sammy.”

“I know. I’m doing everything I can, Dean. Just like I always do. Nothing’s changed.”

“Right,” Dean says. Except that he’s nailing some other fucking hunter now. He feels sick, he needs some air. Pushing past Crowley, past Cas, he stalks out of the bar.

And there’s no fucking reason why he can’t swallow, why he can’t hardly breathe. But that doesn’t matter because as soon as he gets outside, something knotted and ugly tries to push its way out of his throat. 

He has to kick the wall really fucking hard to keep it inside.

***

Luca is already there when Castiel reaches the library. He’s smoking and pacing and when Castiel appears he turns with a beat of alarm. And then he smiles in obvious relief. “Thank God.”

“What?” Castiel says. “What happened?”

“You need to be careful in London,” Luca says, taking a long draw on his cigarette and then stubbing it out. His hands are shaking. “They want you too.”

“Who do?”

“Someone in the London chapter. They think you’re dangerous.”

“I _am_ dangerous,” Castiel says. It isn’t a boast, just a fact. 

“Yes,” Luca says with a smile, “I know.” His desire is as evident as always and, apparently, only heightened by this new threat. He’s not wasting any time either; he’s right up in Castiel’s space, sliding his hands under his coat, under his jacket. His fingers are warm on his waist, through the fabric of his shirt. “Dean too,” Luca says. “You should warn him. They know he’s alive and they’ll be waiting for him in London. He’ll need to be careful.”

“I should—” Castiel swallows, because Luca’s hands are on the small of his back now, tugging their hips together. “I should warn him.”

“Tomorrow.” 

“If he’s in danger…”

“Is he in London?”

“No. But—”

Luca kisses him, smoky and urgent. “Then tomorrow.” 

“He knows about us.” The words spill out accidentally; Castiel hadn’t intended to say anything. It’s not like it matters that Dean knows. Except that he’d been awkward and unable to look Castiel in the eye once he knew. He’d looked unhappy.

Luca pulls back, meets Castiel’s eyes with his unruffled gaze. “And?”

“I don’t know. He seemed…troubled.”

“Troubled?” Luca smiles, smooths his hands along Castiel’s shoulders, over his coat. “Jealous, perhaps?”

But that can’t be right. “No. Dean doesn’t want me like this, he doesn’t feel…” It shouldn’t hurt to say it, but of course it does. His throat closes around the words and he drops his head onto Luca’s shoulder, feeling foolish. Will he never get past this?

Luca is silent for a long moment, one hand gentle on the back of Castiel’s neck. Then he says, like he’s making casual conversation, “You know, I really hate your fucking tourist clothes. You should take them all off. Right now.”

It’s a stupid thing to say, but it makes Castiel huff a laugh into Luca’s shoulder. “I hate them too,” he says, looking up. “I hate every fucking one of them.” 

Luca smiles and Castiel smiles with him. And then they don’t do much but touch and feel for a good long while.

Later, when they’re both naked and sated, Castiel studies his clothes where they lay discarded on the floor. He’s worn them – worn this vessel – so long they’ve almost become part of him. The only time he ever discarded them was during his brief stint as a man, and he’s not given much thought as to why he’d reverted to the same old clothes – or a version of them – when his grace was restored. Perhaps they’d felt like part of who and what he was back then: the angel who gave up everything for Dean Winchester.

But he feels different now, after Lucifer. After confessing himself to Dean and being knocked back so hard. After Luca.

“You could wear something else,” Luca says, blowing smoke toward the open window. 

“Like what?”

He smiles and sits up, unabashedly naked. Castiel wonders if Dean is the same when he’s comfortable with someone. Not that Castiel will ever know. He probably shouldn’t even think about him like that. Dean would call it creepy.

“Come here,” Luca says, padding across the room to the heavy wooden closet in the corner. He pulls open the door to reveal a rack of clothes – shirts, pants, jackets. “Choose something you like.”

“But these are yours,” Castiel says, coming to join him. “I can’t take your clothes, Luca.”

“Why not? They’ll fit you.” Luca slaps a hand on Castiel’s bare stomach. “You’re not so fat, eh?”

Castiel gives him a sideways look. “I’m not fat. I’m an angel. My vessel doesn’t change.”

“This one,” Luca says, reaching into the closet and pulling out a sky-blue shirt. “Matches your eyes, _bello_.”

But that doesn’t feel right. He thinks of Dean in his plaid shirts and t-shirts, his hunter’s jackets. They don’t feel right either. “Sometimes I don’t even know what I am anymore,” he confesses. 

“Sometimes, neither do I,” Luca says and puts the shirt back. “That’s okay, we’re always changing.” He nods toward the closet. “Take your time. Choose anything you like – something that makes you feel like yourself.”

“Whoever that is.”

Luca smiles, reaches over and kisses his mouth. He tastes of cigarette smoke and, beneath that, of sex. “You are what you are, Castiel. Why do you need to name it?” 

He supposes that’s a good question, it’s just that people keep asking. __

_Who are you? What are you?_

Those are the first things Dean ever said to him. He’d had answers for him then; now he’s not so sure.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean’s up early. 

Well, more accurately, he’s up late because, although he lay on his bed for a couple hours, most of that time was spent thinking about Cas.

Cas and his Italian Stallion. 

Jesus.

For a start, he’s as suspicious as hell about this so-called hunter. Cas is such a _child_ sometimes, he probably wouldn’t know if there was something shady about the guy. And the thought of Cas with some creepy _dude_ …? He can’t even—

So, yeah, he’s up early. But it turns out he’s not the first. His mom’s already in the kitchen, nursing a coffee. She smiles thinly when he walks in and says, “Any news from Castiel?”

“No.” He knows he sounds short, and rubs a hand over his scratchy eyes as if it’s some kind of apology. He heads for the coffee pot, jittery with lack of sleep. It’s a crappy way to start the day, an even worse way to start a hunt for his brother. He knows his reactions will be slower, his mind sluggish. _Damn it, Cas_ , he thinks, and then stops himself in case it sounds like a prayer.

“Do you think he’ll be here soon?” his mom says. “We should get to London as soon as possible.”

Dean’s hand shakes as he pours the coffee. “Who knows?” he says. “Sounds like the dude’s busy with— with things.” He takes a long swallow of black coffee, scalds the roof of his mouth, and turns around. “And, Mom, about you coming with us…”

“Dean, we discussed this. I’m coming.”

“But you’re—”

“I’m _coming_ ,” she repeats. “I couldn’t protect Sam when he was a baby, but I sure as hell can now.”

“But that’s—” He cuts himself short, looks down onto the slightly oily surface of his coffee. He was about to say _that’s my job_. 

Mary’s chair scrapes over the floor as she stands up. “Sam’s my son, Dean. This isn’t all on you anymore.”

And that— He just nods, not looking up, because he thinks if he does, if he looks at her, he’ll lose it. 

He almost does when she comes over and puts a hesitant hand on his shoulder. “And you don’t have to protect me, either, Dean. We’re in this together, okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, sniffing. “Yeah, okay.”

Letting go, she sets her empty cup in the sink and says, “I’m going to shower. Are you making breakfast?”

“Sure.” He clears his throat, wipes a surreptitious hand over his eyes. “Eggs okay?”

“Perfect,” she says, and rubs her hand over his back before she leaves.

Dean turns to the refrigerator to grab the eggs. There’s some bacon too, so—

“Oh,” his mom says from the hallway outside the kitchen. “Hi, Castiel.”

Dean almost drops the damn eggs.

“Hello, Mary,” he hears Cas say. “I was looking for Dean…”

His mom appears in the doorway again and says, “Look who I found.”

Dean turns back to his eggs, grabs a bowl and a whisk. It’s easier, for some reason, not to look. He just needs a moment to brace himself, although for what he’s not really sure. Just…

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says. “I’m— I have some news, but as soon as you’re both ready we can go to London.”

Dean cracks an egg into the bowl with rather more force than necessary. He ends up with pieces of shell in the mix that he has to pick out with his fingers. “Great,” he says. 

There’s a pulse of silence, a shuffling of feet – Cas, obviously – and then his mom says “Dean” in a tone which clearly means _stop fucking around_.

He clears his throat, pushes aside all his bullshit confusion, and turns around. “So what—?” And that’s as far as he gets because, _holy crap_ , Cas is standing there looking like… like… “What the hell happened to you?”

Cas glances down at himself, at the tailored black shirt and pants, the pea coat. ”You don’t like it?”

“Dude,” Dean says, trying to make it a laugh but not quite succeeding. “Just— What the hell?”

“I wanted a change,” he says, sliding an embarrassed look at Mary. “Luca…”

Oh, fucking _Luca_. Of course. “What, he took you shopping?” Dean snorts. “Pimp my boyfriend?”

“Dean!” his mom snaps.

And, yeah, he’s acting like a fucking dick. He knows he is, but, c’mon, Cas looks… _Hot_ , some part of his brain supplies. With his crop of messy dark hair and that slim fitting shirt and coat, he looks like… Like Luca’s fucking toy boy, that’s what. And Dean hates it. He hates that some dude’s changing Cas into something else. It’s not right.

“Castiel,” his mom says, “you look very nice. But we’re not here to share fashion tips. What do you know about Sam?”

Cas nods, puts on his serious face. “We think that the London chapter is expecting you to come after Sam.”

“But they think Dean’s dead,” his mom points out. “And they can’t know about me, which gives us an advantage.”

“Unfortunately not,” his eyes shift to Dean and they look too fucking blue against his new pretty-boy outfit. “Luca’s contact implied that they know Dean is still alive, and that he’ll be coming after Sam.” He hesitates for a moment. “They want you too, Dean.”

“So Sam’s the bait in the trap,” Mary says.

“Doesn’t mean we don’t spring it,” Dean says, because they’ve been in this situation before.

“I agree,” Cas says, “but it does mean we need to reassess our plans.” He gives Dean a stern look. “We’ll need to be subtler.”

Mary lets out a breath. “Well at least we know,” she says and pats Cas on the arm with more familiarity than Dean thinks is warranted. “Thank you.” Then she looks between the two of them, her expression ambiguous, and says, “I’m going to shower while you make those eggs, Dean. You boys can figure out a plan.”

Cas steps out of the way to let her pass, and then they’re alone. For a long time they just stare at each other and it feels like there’s so much Dean should say, but he can’t think of a single thing. 

Eventually, it’s Cas who breaks the silence. “When I was Lucifer’s vessel,” he says, “people looked at him with such…hatred. And the person they saw was me. That stupid coat, that tie…” He looks up, holds Dean’s eyes with one of his unabashed stares. “I didn’t want people to see that person anymore, Dean.”

And that lands pretty much like an iron fist, knocking all of Dean’s bullshit flying. “I, uh, I always kinda liked the trench,” he says with a weak smile. “And, for the record, I never saw Lucifer. I always saw you.”

Cas dips his head. “That’s… Thank you, Dean.”

“Don’t freakin’ thank me, man.” He clears his throat, tries to pull his crap together. “So, uh, Luca got you some new threads, huh?”

“He didn’t _buy_ me anything,” Cas says, like that’s the point. “He just let me borrow some of his things.”

And just when he thought he was pulling his shit together, it turns out Cas is _wearing his boyfriend’s clothes_. “Right.” Dean turns back to the eggs, grabs the whisk and starts beating the damn things to death. “Well, good. It’s cool. I mean, you look good.”

Weirdly good.

Fuck. He doesn’t want to think about how good Cas looks; that’s not what he is. It’s _not_.

He grabs a pan and sets it on the stove, throws in a little butter. It’s easier than looking at Cas.

“Dean.” 

He jumps; Cas is right behind him now. The guy moves like a freakin’ ninja. “Damnit, Cas,” he growls, “you should wear a damn bell around your neck.”

With a frown, Cas glances down. “I think that would look strange.”

“Not a—” And he can’t help the laugh that bubbles out, although it hurts like hell, because it’s Cas. It’s still fucking _Cas_. Behind him, the butter starts to sizzle. He should turn the heat down, but Cas is looking at him with that fond affection he knows so well and Dean can’t look away. 

“Dean,” Cas says at last, “this thing with Luca…?” __

 _Stop_ , he thinks. _Stop talking_.

“It doesn’t mean that I’m not…” He looks away, like he’s searching for the right words, “It doesn’t mean that I won’t be available for you and Sam when you need me. Just like I’ve always been.”

The butter’s starting to spit, Dean turns around and pours in the eggs. “Available like Triple A?” he says and doesn’t care if it sounds bitter. Because, _available_? What the hell does that mean?

“I’ll still come when you need me, Dean.” __

 _I always need you_ , he thinks and scrubs a hand over his tired eyes. _I always need you and now you’re not here. Now you’re in fucking Naples._

“Dean?” Cas puts a hand on his shoulder, turns him back to face him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” 

“You seem upset.”

“Nah, I’m just tired.” It’s not entirely a lie, after all. “I didn’t sleep.” 

“You didn’t sleep?” His brow furrows in concern, and then clears. “You were worrying about Sam, of course.”

He gives a slight laugh. “Right.”

“Here,” he says and lifts his hand to Dean’s face. 

“Dude…”

“Let me help you,” he says. “Please, Dean.” 

And really he’s just too damn weak to resist. So he lets Cas cup his hand to his face, fingertips in the hair behind his ear, thumb on his cheekbone. He closes his eyes as the pure thrum of grace slides into him, under his skin, washing away his fatigue, his aching muscles, the grit in his eyes. And when the grace retreats and Cas’s hand still lingers, Dean opens his eyes and says nothing when Cas brushes his thumb over his cheekbone before letting his hand drop away.

“Better?” Cas says.

He nods. “Yeah, thanks.”

And that’s how his mom finds them, standing too close together with the eggs burning in the pan behind them.

Cas backs off, turns away as soon as she appears, and Dean finds himself stirring the eggs with his pulse thumping in his newly cleared head. __

 _What was that?_ he thinks. _What the fuck was that?_

He can feel his mom’s gaze on his back, but all she says is, “I was thinking we should contact that demon again before we go. If the Men of Letters are expecting us, we’ll need a couple of tricks to get around them. And he looks like the type to know.”

“You’re right,” Cas says. “I’ll fetch him immediately.”

Dean doesn’t blame him for zapping out; he’d have done the same if he could.

 

Crowley, as it turns out, is a fount of knowledge about the dark underbelly of London. It’s just that not all of his information is useful.

“You want to go to the Red Lion Inn, in Clerkenwell,” he tells Dean. “Next to the Fleet Ditch. Excellent ale, excellent women.” He winks at Cas. “Nice boys too.”

Cas huffs out an irritable noise, looks embarrassed, and wedges his hands deeper into the pockets of his coat. He’s flipped the collar up against the breeze, like he’s getting cold standing on the windblown roadside outside the bunker (because Mary had put her foot down about bringing demons inside) and Dean can’t stop looking at the way Cas’s hair is curling over the top of his collar. It makes his fingers itch.

“Crowley,” Cas says, “I fail to see how this is going to help us find Sam.” 

“Oh it’s not. But ask for Dick Radcliffe – he’s an old mate of mine – and he’ll…” Crowley stops, narrows his eyes. “Ah, yes. Actually, he’s probably dead.”

“Because you killed him?” Dean guesses, hunching into his own coat and glaring at Crowley to avoid looking at Cas.

“No,” Crowley says, “but I was forgetting the time. That was probably about 1720.”

Dean frowns. “In the afternoon?”

“The year, sugar lump.” He bares his teeth at Mary in an approximation of a smile. “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“Crowley,” Cas says, apparently losing all patience. “When was the last time you were actually _in_ London?”

“Eighteen-fourteen. Shagged young George Byron seven ways from Sunday. Now _that_ was a party.” He grins at Castiel. “Right up your alley, so to speak.”

“That’s it,” Dean says, cutting in despite the flush crawling up his neck at the thought of Cas— “I’m done. Crowley, tell us something useful or just fuck off.”

Crowley bristles, brushes down his jacket. “Feeling a little tense in the trouser department, are we Dean? Can’t think why.”

“Crowley…”

“Alright!” He holds up his hands. “Try the Chapel of the Pyx, under Westminster Abby. That’s where they used to take our people for…interrogation. Almost impossible to get in or out, even when they don’t know you’re coming – makes the wards on your not-so-secret- hideout look like finger painting.”

“Chapel of the Picks?”

“Pyx.” He glances at Cas. “Your boyfriend will know what it means.” 

And then he’s gone – no swell of energy, no spine-tingling surge of power. Nothing but a whiff of sulphur. 

It leaves Cas, Dean and his mom standing in a loose circle under heavy gray skies. The wind snatches at his jacket, tousles Cas’s hair where he’s staring pensively at the ground. 

“Well,” his mom says, looking between the two of them with a look that says she’s taking everything in and reserving judgment, “you’re right Dean, Crowley really is a dick.”

Cas smiles and looks up and for a moment he meets Dean’s eye. “There’s a safe house in London we can use,” he says. “It belongs to one of Luca’s friends.”

And, yeah, he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t know anything about Luca Moretti, or his friends, or London, or the Men of fucking Letters. But the truth is, he doesn’t trust his own judgment right now and he doesn’t want to be a jerk about the whole Luca thing. Cas is his friend, the best friend he ever had, and he can’t screw that up. He needs Cas too much to risk losing him over something this fucking stupid. So he swallows his doubts, for now, and says, “Okay, let’s do it. Let’s go get Sam.”

With a serious nod, Cas reaches out and puts his hand on Dean’s shoulder, the other on Mary’s. But she looks wary, starts to pull back. 

“It’s okay, mom,” Dean says. “He’s got you. You’ll be okay.”

For a fleeting moment, Cas smiles at him and then his face takes on that look of hard angelic intent and a moment later they’re standing in a small living room that looks out onto a narrow car-lined street. Dean can almost feel the age of the house, the imprints of all the people who’ve lived there over the years. Hunters, most of them, he thinks; there’s blood, salt and iron down to the foundations in this place. He can smell it. 

“Where are we?” he says, looking over at the black iron fireplace, a couple of battered leather couches, and a large wooden trunk. 

“A refuge,” Cas says, lowering his hand from Dean’s shoulder. “For hunters.”

He vaguely imagines aristocrats in red coats, riding horses and yelling ‘tally-ho!’ “What kind of hunters do they have in England?” 

“Good ones,” Cas says, heading out of the room and into the narrow hallway beyond. It leads back to a tiny kitchen and a postage-stamp yard. “They’ve been hunting for thousands of years. They’re quite the experts.”

He’s got no answer to that, so instead he says, “And how far are we from this abbey?”

“A few miles. But we should do some reconnaissance first.” He turns, leans a hip against the edge of the kitchen counter. “Find out if Sam’s really there – Crowley’s local knowledge was far from current.” 

Dean’s followed him into the kitchen, which is so narrow they could barely pass each other without touching. It’s more like a hallway with counters running along each side. And Cas just looks too large for it with his heavy dark coat and stark blue eyes, like he’s built for open spaces – for the fucking cosmos – not the confines of this cramped London house. “You got any idea how we do that, man? We don’t even have a car.”

“Well, you have me,” Cas says, offering a smile. 

“Sure, Travis, but how do we know where to go? We need to find this Lady Poshington chick and—”

“Lady Bevell,” Castiel corrects. “And we already know where she is.”

“We?” He drops his eyes to the tiled floor, to Cas’s black boots. Are they Luca’s too? Doesn’t matter; focus on Sam. Scratching his head he takes a breath and says, “You mean Luca knows where she is?”

He can feel Cas watching him intently and it’s a couple beats before he says, “Like I said, Luca has contacts in London.” He hesitates for another moment, and then adds, “I think it would be useful if he was here.”

Dean stills, feels his adrenaline pump like he’s just been jumped by something. His mouth is dry. “Cas,” he says, “we don’t need—”

“He knows London. He knows the Men of Letters, Dean.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know _him_.” It comes out rough, riding on a wave of panic. 

Cas says, “But I do.”

“You’re screwing him,” he snaps, “that doesn’t count.”

He’s still staring at the floor, can see Cas shift his feet. “I think you’re being unreasonable,” he says. “Just because I’m... That doesn’t mean my judgment’s impaired.”

“Oh, trust me,” Dean says, looking up. “It does.”

“You sleep with lots of women,” Cas counters. “It doesn’t affect your judgment.”

“It’s not the same!”

“Why not?”

“Because— because they don’t…” _Mean anything_ , he wants to say. _They don’t mean anything_. But that feels like he’d be giving something away, so he just says, “Shut up.” 

Cas huffs out his irritated sigh. “Well, failing a more cogent argument, Dean, I’m going to ask Luca to join us.”

“Cas—”

“And you’re just going to have to trust me.” 

And he zaps out with an irritable flutter of wings that ruffles Dean’s hair because he’s standing so damn close.

“Fuck,” he says to himself. _Fuck_. 

“Dean?” Mary appears at the living room door. “Come and look at this.”

He stomps back into the living room, where Mary’s got the wooden trunk open. The lid is engraved with a devil’s trap and lined with serrated knives of various lengths, and in the trunk there’s a shit load of hunting gear. “Whoa,” Dean says, dropping down next to her to look. He sees boxes of silver bullets, iron rounds, bags of rock salt – something like a samurai sword – bags of dried herbs, other creepy-looking spell ingredients. And on the back of the trunk, scrawled onto the wood in black ink it says: _Take what you need, put something back_.

“It’s a cache,” his mom says. “Grandpa told me these kinds of things used to exist all over the States once, before the Men of Letters were taken down.”

“Sweet,” Dean says, runs a hand over the flat edge of one of the knives. “I can see how it would be—”

With a flutter of wings, of air, Cas is back. Dean’s stomach drops, his hand twitching so hard on the blade that he nicks his finger. _Damnit_. He sucks the blood off and stands up. If he’s gonna face Luca then he’s facing him on his damn feet.

“Dean,” Cas says as Dean turns around, “this is Luca Moretti. Luca – Dean Winchester and his mother, Mary.”

Luca eyes them with unveiled interest. He’s not exactly the Italian Stallion Dean had been dreading, but he’s lean and dangerous-looking: definitely a hunter. He’s cautious, but clearly not afraid, and when his eyes meet Dean’s there’s a patent challenge there. Dean can feel himself being assessed, measured. He does the same right back. “Luca,” he says with a nod.

“I’ve heard much about you,” Luca says in a lilting Italian accent. “You’re a famous man, Dean Winchester. Back from the dead again, yes?”

“Third time’s the charm,” he says with a flat smile.

Luca returns the smile and it’s just as flat. Then he turns to Mary and says, “ _Piacere di conoscerti, Signora Winchester.”_

Dean thinks, _Jerk_.

His mom just smiles and says, “Castiel tells us you can help find my son.”

“I will try,” Luca says, glancing around the room. He looks at Cas and says something fast in Italian that makes Cas laugh and shake his head. 

And then Cas replies, also and bizarrely, in Italian. It sounds incredible in that smoky voice of his and Dean’s stomach twists hard; he fucking _hates_ it. He hates that he can’t understand, that Cas and Luca have their own secret freakin’ language, and that he—

“Luca was complaining that it’s cold here,” Cas explains, smiling at Luca as he speaks. “He wants me to take him home to fetch a coat. I said I’m not a taxi.”

“Cute,” Dean says with a forced smile, and then, “I need a fucking beer.”


	6. Chapter 6

It’s late by the time Cas zaps back into the house with Luca, and Dean’s all but climbing the walls in frustration.

“We can’t risk them seeing you, Dean,” Cas had said. “Don’t forget they’re hunting you too. Just stay here, we’ll be back soon.”

‘Soon’ turned into three hours and Dean is on the point of abandoning his self-respect and praying when he hears Cas’s voice in the kitchen. He smells food too. Thank fuck; he’s starving.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says with a smile, and waves his hand at a couple of pizza boxes. “Pizza,” he says. “From Naples.”

“From—” He looks over at Luca, who’s wearing his freakin’ coat now, and says, “You got take out from _Italy_?”

Cas gives a little shrug, almost coy. “I think you’ll like it. Their pizza is very tasty.”

“Real pizza,” Luca says and opens a box. “It’s good.”

It looks like crap, Dean thinks – no pepperoni, no jalapeños. Just cheese, and leaves of some kind. “Did you bring beer?”

“Of course.” Cas points to some bottles of Italian crap and Dean takes one without comment. He tries not to think about what they’d been doing back in Naples before they got the pizza.

They eat in the living room, Dean sitting on the floor with his back against one of the sofas, next to his mom, while Cas and Luca perch on the other sofa and tell them what they’ve found out about Sam.

“Crowley’s guess was right,” Cas says, peeling off his coat. “They’re taking Sam to the Chapel of the Pyx tomorrow.”

“So where is he now?”

“The Men of Letters chapter house – for interrogation.” Cas shakes his head. “We couldn’t get in without being detected. It would be best to intercept Sam tomorrow, when he’s being moved.”

“It’s too easy,” Luca says. “They want you to come for him, Castiel. I think it’s too easy, what they’re saying about Sam being taken to the Pyx chapel.”

“But does it matter?” Cas says. He’s set his coat on the back of the sofa and the dark shirt he’s wearing – _Luca’s_ shirt – is trim about his waist. Not that Dean’s looking. “Once Sam’s in the chapel, it’ll be almost impossible retrieve him,” Cas carries on. “We need to strike while he’s moving.”

“They’ll be expecting it,” Luca says. “Expecting _you_ , Castiel.”

He pronounces Cas’s name with a flourish, with an emphasis on the ‘el’ at the end, that makes it sound like he’s talking dirty. It makes Dean’s skin crawl. “It still sounds like a better shot than waiting until he’s in the chapel,” he says. 

Luca shrugs. “Maybe.”

“Cas?”

“I agree,” Cas says. “We should ambush the convoy tomorrow morning. We know the time it’s moving. It’s our best chance at succeeding.”

From behind him, his mom says, “Then it sounds like we need a plan.”

It takes them an hour to figure it out – it’ll involve Dean stealing a car, and Cas, with his wings strapped on, ready for a quick getaway. What it lacks in finesse, it makes up for in simplicity: stop the car, smite the windows, and get Sam the hell outa there.

Once they’re done, Mary heads to one of the bedrooms upstairs to get some sleep. The house is freaky, laid out four floors but so narrow that each floor only has one or two rooms. There are three bedrooms, two with bunk beds, and a reasonable sized bathroom with – Dean’s impressed to discover – an extensive med kit. Everything’s clean and in good order. He’s certainly stayed in worse places.

His mom takes one of the rooms on the second floor and hesitates in the doorway before saying goodnight. “Dean,” she says in a low voice, drawing him in with a look, “are you okay?”

He blinks at her. “What? Yeah.”

“You seem…” She shakes her head, like she’s shaking something loose. “Well, it doesn’t matter. We’re all tired.” She hesitates, then reaches up and kisses his cheek. “Get some rest,” she says with a smile and pats his face.

It’s so sweet, so maternal, that he feels something coil up inside and can’t help reaching out to hug her tight. “You too, Mom,” he says and lets himself bury his face into her hair for just a moment. 

She pats his back and steps away. “Goodnight, Dean.”

He stays outside her room for a moment, getting the grieving four year old inside him back under control. When he’s done, he heads downstairs in search of a beer; he’s too antsy to sleep. 

There are a couple left in the refrigerator and he snags one, pops the cap and drinks. There’s no space for any kind of table in the skinny kitchen, so he heads back to the living room. Halfway there, he stops. He can see through the door, just enough to see Cas and Luca sitting close together on the sofa. They’re talking quietly in Italian. And even though Dean can’t understand the words, he can pick out Cas’s voice and hear its intimate tone. 

Cas has talked to him like that, sometimes. Late at night when it’s just the two of them. Dean always thought he _only_ talked to him like that – that it was special, part of the bond they shared. The one they don’t talk about, but that was burned into his soul that day in Hell.

But now he can see it’s not special and that hurts like betrayal. 

And then Cas sighs, dips his head to Luca’s shoulder like he’s seeking comfort, and suddenly Dean can’t watch anymore. He has to move.

But he’s clumsy with haste, scuffs his boot on the wooden floor, and Cas sees him. He freezes with his head on Luca’s shoulder and his eyes on Dean. __

_That should be me_ , Dean thinks in a rush of clarity. _That should be me sitting right there._

And he doesn’t know what the fuck it means, but it scares the living crap out of him. 

He all but flees upstairs and into one of the bedrooms. He’s shaking as he sits on the narrow bunk bed and buries his head in his hands.

There’s something brightening in the back of his mind like the rising of the sun or the drawing back of curtains. But he doesn’t want to see. He doesn’t want to know what it’s showing him. So he screws shut his eyes and clenches his fingers into his hair until the light goes away and his heart stops racing.

He can’t do anything about the low, dull ache though. That, he figures, he’ll just have to live with.

***

Sam’s not sure what he was expecting from the Men of Letters – perhaps a panel of old men with Victorian whiskers and monocles – but it certainly wasn’t the four people watching him across a modern desk in a sleek office building overlooking the night-dark Thames. 

Toni Bevell shows him in to the room, crisp in a suit, and Sam feels somewhat underdressed. Like he’s turned up for a job interview in jeans by mistake.

“Mr. Khan,” Toni says as she enters the room, “this is Sam Winchester.”

One of the men gets to his feet as Sam walks in. Like Toni, he’s smartly dressed with keen, assessing eyes. “Mr. Winchester,” he says, and doesn’t offer a hand to shake. “My name is Aaban Khan, Chairman of the London Chapter of the Men of Letters.” He gestures to the people next to him, “this is Dr. Ebele Okonjo, Mr. Roi Rothman, and Pax Atherton – our hunter representative.”

The other two look much like Khan – smart, well pressed and watching Sam with appraising eyes. Atherton, however, sprawls in his chair and when Sam catches his eye he gives a slight smile, the twitch of one corner of his mouth. Sam thinks he might have an ally in the hunter, at least.

Khan gestures to the single chair set in front of the desk and says, “Take a seat.”

Sam glances at Toni and she gives a slight nod, before walking over to the floor to ceiling window and standing with her back to the room, looking out across the bright lights of the city glittering in the river.

“Mr. Winchester—”

“It’s Sam,” he says, bracing his hands on his knees. “Among friends, it’s Sam.”

Khan smiles at that, the merest glimpse of his teeth. “Do you know why you’re here, _Sam_?”

He looks at Toni, sees her back stiffen. “All I know is that I’ve been shot and abducted,” he says. 

Khan’s gaze moves to Toni and then back to Sam. “We’ve been watching you and your brother for a number of years,” he says. “It’s been causing us some concern – some trouble, in fact.”

Sam doesn’t respond to that; he can’t imagine the last few years have caused them more trouble than they’ve caused him. Dean is dead, after all. And not for the first time.

“Mr. Winchester,” Ebele Okonjo says, “have you ever heard of the old lady who swallowed a fly?” She sounds a bit like Crowley, the way she speaks. “The children’s song?”

“Uh, yeah?” he says, not quite sure where she’s going.

“The old lady swallows a fly, then a spider to eat the fly, then a bird to eat the spider, then a cat to eat the bird—”

“I know the song,” Sam says. “What’s your point?”

Okonjo holds up a finger, starts ticking things off as she says, “Lilith. Lucifer. Leviathan. Abaddon. Mark of Cain. The Darkness.”

“Yeah, and we dealt with them all,” Sam says. “I repeat, what’s your point?”

“My point,” Okonjo says, “is that you and your brother have unleashed a series of increasingly dangerous threats on the world – simply to save _each other_. _”_

“They weren’t all our fault,” Sam says. “And when they were, we cleaned it up. We cleaned up our mess.”

“Your mess?” Okonjo looks over at Rothman sitting next to her and shakes her head in disbelief. 

“Do you even know what’s been happening outside your own back yard, _Sam_?” Rothman says. “Do you know about the massacre in Rotterdam, for example? Or the hell hounds that invaded a school in Glasgow? Not to mention the Leviathan network that we’re _still_ digging out of the City?”

Sam blinks at him, frowns. “Well, not specifically, but—”

“No,” Rothman says, leaning forward across the table. “You don’t know. You don’t even _think_ of the consequences, do you, when you save your brother at all costs?”

And that’s it. That’s all he can take of this bullshit. “My brother,” he hisses, “is _dead_. He died to save the _whole world_ , not just our backyard. He died to save _all_ of you. Everyone. So you can take your sanctimonious preaching and shove it up your ass!”

Rothman looks unimpressed, but sits back in silence.

“Your brother,” Okonjo says, “died clearing up the mess _you_ made when you released him from the Mark of Cain. So don’t make him out to be some kind of hero, Sam. You almost destroyed the world to save your brother. Does that sound like rational behavior? Or does it sound like something that should be stopped?”

Sam flinches at that, because of course he’s thought the same thing. For years, now, he’s thought the same thing – he knows they’ve made some crappy choices. But still… “We’ve done the best we can,” he says. “And, yeah, sometimes we screwed up. But you know what? You’ve been sitting here in your ivory tower all this time… It didn’t occur to you to maybe help us out? We’ve been on our own out there, on the front line of all this shit, for _years_. We could’ve used some back up. Some guidance.”

Atherton, the hunter, shifts in his seat. “You’re not the first person to say that.” His gaze moves to the other panelists and then back to Sam. 

“Yes, well,” Khan says, flattening his hands on the table. “What’s done is done. The question now is what do we do with you, Sam? How do we keep the world safe from you?”

***

Castiel lets Luca take him apart in the top floor bedroom.

He knows it’s wrong, with Dean so close, but he can’t help himself; Dean’s wordless prayers are so heavy with unfocused want that Castiel thinks, if he isn’t distracted, he might just go to him and beg.

So he lets Luca take him apart with his mouth, his lips, and his tongue. They’re silent, just hot breaths and stifled gasps, and it doesn’t take long; Dean’s steady gaze, the way Castiel had caught him staring at them through the doorway, fills his mind and makes him come with swift and unexpected force. He barely keeps from crying out.

Luca laughs, smothers the sound into Castiel’s stomach before taking him in his mouth again. Castiel recovers fast, they’ve discovered, and Luca makes good use of his erection to ride himself to his own release.

Castiel lingers for a while, after, listening to Luca sleep. His desire isn’t sated, but it never will be with Dean in the room below. He can practically hear him thinking, his thoughts frustrated and circling on the edge of prayer. Castiel would like to smooth them out, to thread them between his fingers until they’re free, curl his grace around Dean and just _be_. 

But Dean doesn’t want that, not from him. __

_It’s not that_ , he’d said. _I’m not that._

Later, Castiel gets up to take a shower. It’s not necessary, but he’s discovered he enjoys the sensation and it’s something to pass the time while everyone sleeps. He stands under the water until it starts to run cold and then dries off, rubs the towel over his hair, and wipes a patch of the mirror clean of steam so he can look at himself. He looks different, naked, without the clothes that used to define him. His hair is spiked in all directions because it’s wet, his face a little rough with stubble – as a human he’d had to shave, but it’s not necessary now – and on the edge of his collar bone there’s a red mark Luca left behind.

He touches it with one finger, recalls the sensation of warm lips against his skin, the light scrape of teeth, and allows himself a moment to imagine it was Dean. The idea runs through him like light, makes him shiver; to be touched like that by Dean would be extraordinary. 

But it’s impossible, he shouldn’t even think about it. 

He turns away from the mirror, wraps a towel around his waist, and steps out of the bathroom. The air outside is cool on his damp skin and he relishes the human sensation as he climbs the winding stairs up to his room as quietly as possible so as not to—

Suddenly, Dean is there. He’s coming around the corner of the stairs in front of him. He’s sleepy and disheveled and they practically collide before Dean stumbles to a halt, eyes jolting wide. His mouth opens, like he’s going to speak, but he says nothing. He just stares. And then his gaze slips south, over Castiel’s chest, down to this bare feet and back up again. He swallows, Castiel can see his throat working, and wets his lips with the tip of his tongue. 

Castiel thinks he should speak, but he’s not sure what it’s appropriate to say so instead he starts to edge past Dean and head up to his room.

Dean turns to let him pass, his gaze sliding away, and they’re very close on the narrow staircase. Close enough that Castiel can smell beer on Dean’s lips, the warm scent of his sleep-rumpled clothes. His skin prickles, gooseflesh standing out on his arms and chest as they pass. He wonders if Dean can feel the extent of his human desire, how it thrums through his grace.

But Dean is already moving, heading down the stairs and disappearing into the bathroom. Castiel watches the closed bathroom door for a long minute before he shakes himself and carries on up to the room where Luca’s sleeping.

He sits on the edge of the bed until his skin grows cold, thinking about Dean and how he’d looked at him. It reminds him of how Luca looks at him, but that can’t be right. Can it? He’s too unpracticed at these things to trust his own interpretation.

Behind him, Luca snores and Castiel realizes he doesn’t want to be there anymore. So, quietly, he dresses and heads downstairs past Dean’s closed door. 

He’s surprised to find Mary Winchester in the living room, sitting with her legs curled up at one end of the sofa, sipping a hot drink. He stops in the doorway, afraid of intruding.

But she smiles when she sees him and says, “Trouble sleeping too?” 

“No. I don’t sleep,” he tells her as he steps into the room. “That is, I’ve learned how to sleep, but it’s not necessary. At the moment, at least.”

Her slightly bemused expression tells him he’s probably over explained. “I could help you sleep, though,” he says, sitting down at the other end of the sofa. “If you like?”

“With magic?” She sounds wary. He can’t really blame her, considering.

“It’s not magic,” he says. “But I suppose it looks like it.”

“I think I’ll be fine,” she says. And then, after a pause, “Actually, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to ask you something, if you don’t mind?”

Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, he says, “Of course, what is it?”

“It’s about Dean.”

He keeps his gaze on the wooden floor. “Alright.”

“He seems… Is he happy, Castiel?”

And he has no idea how to answer that. “He’s… Dean is— He could never be happy if Sam was in any kind of trouble,” he says, hedging. “Sam’s the most important thing in his life.”

Mary absorbs that, then says, “Okay, but I wasn’t meaning right now. I mean in general. He seems so tense, so closed off. I was wondering…” He can feel her eyes on him but doesn’t look up, afraid of what she might see if he did. “Does he have anyone, you know, special? Or… or did he?”

“Well there was Lisa,” Castiel says, watches his fingers knit together in front of him, the knuckles turning white. He can never think about Lisa and Ben without pain, about how they had been hurt because of him, about how he’d washed Dean from their memories. The fact that Dean has ever trusted him again is a miracle, a testament to the goodness of his heart.

Mary takes a sip of her drink. “Lisa?”

“They were together for a while. But Lisa wasn’t a hunter, so…”

“Yes,” she says sadly. “It’s not a life you can leave behind. Even when that’s all you want to do.”

Castiel nods, because it’s true and there’s no point in denying it.

“Anyone else?” Mary presses. “Anyone, uh, who _is_ in the life in some way?”

He thinks he knows what she’s asking; Mary Winchester is a perceptive woman. Sam’s a lot like her. “I’m very fond of Dean,” he says, carefully. “He and I share a deep fraternal bond, but he wouldn’t want it to develop beyond that.”

“He wouldn’t,” Mary repeats and Castiel isn’t sure whether it’s a question or a statement. 

He risks a sideways glance and finds her watching him. “He _wouldn’t_ ,” he says, and then looks back down at his hands. “He told me.”

Mary’s silent. 

Upstairs he can feel Dean, restless on the edge of sleep, and has to repress an absurd surge of longing. He’s about to get up, to find something to do to distract himself, when Mary says,

“I don’t know my son as well as you do, Castiel, but I can tell how much you mean to him. Whatever he calls it, I think he loves you in his own way.”

Castiel smiles a little, “Yes, I know,” he says, “in his own way.”

He wishes it didn’t feel so tragic.


	7. Chapter 7

As soon as there’s a hint of daylight, Dean’s up and downstairs. 

He eats a leftover slice of crappy Naples pizza for breakfast, wishes he had coffee, and wills time to move faster. The sooner this is done, the better. The sooner he gets Sammy back, gets home to the bunker and away from Cas and his fucking _boyfriend_ , the better.

This whole situation is driving him nuts; he actually feels like he’s going insane. There are feelings and thoughts in his head that he can’t explain, doesn’t want, and can’t get rid of. And his late-night encounter with Cas on the stairs isn’t helping any; it’s pretty much burned into his brain. Because he can only think of one reason why Cas would be showering in the middle of the night and that— 

It creeps him out to think about _that_ happening in the room right above him, and yet he can’t _stop_ thinking about it – picturing it, even. In detail. But the thought of Luca touching Cas like that – of anyone touching him like that? Man, it’s just so wrong it makes him sick to his stomach.

And that’s not even the worst of it. No, the worst of it is the feeling that ambushed him on the stairs – that bolt of raw desire, that possessive flare of _mine, mine, mine_. 

He doesn’t get it; it’s not who he is. He doesn’t feel that way about Cas. He fucking _doesn’t_.

And yet there’s something humming dissonant under his skin, something nameless and enervating. Something he doesn’t dare examine. 

Which brings him back to the fact that the sooner he’s out of here the better.

His irritable thoughts are disturbed by the front door opening. Dean goes for his knife, but it’s only half drawn before he sees that it’s Cas (of course it fucking is) maneuvering his way into the house carrying a cardboard tray holding four coffees.

Dean turns away, re-sheathes his knife, and tries to get his racing heart to slow the fuck down.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas says as he comes into the kitchen. “Would you like some coffee?” He’s wearing that coat again, with the collar turned up, and his hair's a little windblown. 

And why the hell is Dean even noticing these things? Irritable, he grunts, “You get that from Naples too?”

“No, I don’t think you’d like Neapolitan coffee, Dean; the cups are very small. This is from Starbucks.”

“You went back to the States?” Despite himself, he’s a little impressed.

But Cas gives him a look, the kind that says, _I’m not sure if you’re joking or just stupid_ , and says, “There’s one at the end of the street.”

And, well, how was he supposed to know that? 

“This one’s yours.” Cas holds out a cup to him. “Americano, black with three sugars.”

“Thanks,” he says, and tries not to sound grudging. He takes a sip and it’s good, he can feel himself start to relax as the heat and familiar taste unwind him. Blowing out a slow breath he thinks, _yeah, okay._ And even if he is far too aware of how close Cas is standing in the stupidly small kitchen, for now it's just them and he likes that; it feels comfortable.

Of course, Cas has to go and ruin the moment. “I, um, I hope I didn’t disturb you last night,” he says, because he’s a freakin’ _idiot_.

Memory makes Dean's face burn and he buries it in another sip of hot coffee. “No, man. I just needed to pee.”

Cas is silent for a beat, then earnestly says, “It’s inconvenient, the constant need to urinate. I remember that vividly from my time as a human.”

And Dean laughs, or something like it; there's some emotion erupting out of his throat. He almost chokes on his coffee. Because Cas… Just fucking _Cas_. “I miss you, man,” he blurts, helpless. “I fucking miss your crazy shit.”

And, God, he has to swallow it right back down, whatever this is, because it’s too fucking huge to let out. 

But Cas just gives him that small bemused smile of his, the one that means he’s pleased to have said something funny even if he isn't quite sure what it was. He doesn’t have time to reply, though, because that’s when Luca strolls into the kitchen.

“ _Ciao, bello,_ ” he says to Cas, and Dean’s acutely aware of the way his hand trails over Cas’s back as he passes him, of the way Cas’s eyes follow him as he picks up the smallest of the coffees and takes a sip.

Luca grimaces and mutters a complaint in Italian.

Cas shrugs and says, “ _Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more_ – really, you should be drinking tea in England.” 

Luca smiles at that and swallows another mouthful of coffee. His eyes come to rest on Dean, dark and keen. “So you understand what we’ll do today?”

“Do you?” Dean says. Because, _fuck off_.

Luca smiles again, slides a glance at Cas and then looks back at Dean. “You and your mother cut off the convoy on Little Smith Street – one car behind, one in front. Castiel will undo the warding on the vehicle and I’ll grab your brother. With luck, they don’t kill us.” His gaze turns back to Cas. “Then you’ll bring us back here.”

“Why here?” Dean says. “Take Sam straight back to the bunker, man.”

“No, we should regroup with you and Mary here,” Cas says. “It’ll be easier for me to bring Sam a shorter distance at first, and then transport you home later.”

Dean narrows his eyes. “Easier? I thought you were all juiced up.”

“Heaven is still closed.” 

He doesn’t elaborate, but it’s enough to pull loose a thread of concern in Dean’s mind. “But you’re okay, right?” 

“Of course,” Cas says. “Don’t worry, I won’t let you down, Dean.”

Which wasn’t at all what he was asking, but whatever; the sooner this is done the better. Dean drains his coffee, sets his cup down on the counter. “Okay,” he says. “I’m gonna go get Mom and we’ll steal us a couple cars.”

As it turns out, stealing the cars is the easy bit. Driving on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, through fucking terrible traffic, is hellish. But at last they make it through the messed up road network to Little Smith Street. And little’s the word. Brick buildings on one side, brick wall on the other. Dean feels the need to breathe in as he maneuvers his car around the corner and pulls over onto the sidewalk – there’s literally no other space. He has no idea where people in this fucking city park their cars. 

His mom is at the other end of the street – alley – and they wait, the clock ticking down, for the Men of Letters to show up. After that it all pretty much goes according to plan.

Almost.

Dean watches in the rearview mirror as the convoy rounds the corner bang on time – three black-windowed SUVs – and waits for the count of three before spinning the wheel and pulling out to block the narrow street. His mom does the same behind them, closing the road.

The driver of the first SUV steps on the break. Even so, he plows into Dean’s car and the nose is nudged forward with force, spinning the car halfway around. Dean’s head slams against the passenger door. He’s woozy for a moment and when he shakes if off, Cas is already there, Luca at his side.

Cas strides toward the middle car and slams his hand down on the hood, shoulders hunched and head bowed in concentration. There’s light, in and around him, flaring white as it intensifies, and then—

Something detonates. It’s almost subsonic, but Dean feels the force of it lift one side of his car before it drops back down hard.

Then Cas slams into the ground a foot away from the Dean’s front wheels and doesn’t move.

Luca’s down too, but he’s already picking himself up as Dean scrambles out of the car. 

“Help him!” Luca yells to Dean as men spill out of the SUVs. Dean glimpses an angel blade in one of their hands and doesn’t need to be told twice.

His mom’s car is already backing up as Dean grabs hold of Cas. “C’mon…”

Cas blinks, bleary. “Dean?”

“Move,” Dean hisses, no time to be relieved that he’s alive. “On your damn feet, Cas!”

He hauls him up and shoves him toward the car. Cas hisses in pain, but makes it to the car. Luca’s backing up, away from the men. He’s got a knife in his hand and Dean feels a moment of unwilling gratitude. Dude’s got their backs.

Throwing the car into reverse, Dean backs up and Cas opens the backseat door to let Luca dive in before Dean hits the gas and they go.

“Fuck,” he says as he lurches through London’s crappy traffic, no idea where he’s going. “The hell happened, Cas?”

Cas is in the back seat along with Luca. In the rearview mirror, Dean can see his pinched expression. He looks pale and in pain. “I don’t know.” He takes a breath, clutching his right arm and grits his teeth. “It’s— My grace is wounded. I’m… Dean, my powers… I’ve lost them.”

Dean tightens his fingers on the steering wheel and fixes his eyes on the road. __

_Fuck_.

It takes a couple hours to navigate their way back to the house. His mom calls on a burner phone when they’re halfway there. She’s lost, but okay. He tells her to stay put and he’ll come get her when he can; he wants to get Cas someplace safe first.

From the outside, the safe house is just an ordinary, skinny townhouse, with a scrap of yard and an iron railing out front. There’s no parking and the road is nose-to-nose cars on either side. Dean slows, stops outside the house and lets the engine idle. “Where the hell do people park around here?” 

Luca leans forward from the back seat. “Take Castiel inside,” he says, holding his hand out for the keys. “I’ll find your mother and get rid of the cars.”

Dean looks at him, surprised. “You don’t want to…?” He makes a vague gesture toward Cas, hunched in on himself on the backseat next to Luca.

The look Luca gives him in return is long and searching, intense from close up. “Don’t be an idiot,” he says. And then, with a smile, “I know London better. It makes sense.”

Cas is at least walking when he gets out of the car, although he looks tired and he’s cradling one arm like it’s broken.

Before he leaves, Luca mutters something to Cas that makes him frown and shake his head, and then Luca takes the keys from Dean and slips into the driver’s seat. Dean doesn’t watch him go, just leads Cas up the short path to the house and unlocks the door. 

Cas makes it as far as the living room before he slumps down on the closest sofa, wincing as he moves. “I feel like every muscle in my body is bruised.”

“Did you…” Dean stays standing, on edge for reasons he hasn’t explored. “Did you see Sam in there?

“I’m sorry. I didn’t see anything.” He winces and shifts his right shoulder awkwardly. 

Dean lets out a breath, puts aside his worry for Sam. It doesn’t mean anything that Cas didn’t see him – the windows were dark, he was blasted away pretty fast. And it was obviously a trap; Sam might not have been there at all. “You’ve hurt your arm,” he says instead, focusing on something he might be able to fix.

Cas grimaces. “I think I landed badly.”

“You landed like a sack of flour, man. I’d say you landed badly.” He hesitates for a moment, more uneasy about this than he would be normally – than he would be if this were Sam. He clears his throat and tells himself to quit being such a jerk. “Come on,” he says. “Let me take a look.”

“That’s not necessary, I can—” 

“Shut up,” Dean grouses. “Take off your coat.”

Cas glances up from the sofa, looking mulish. “Dean—”

“You’re not Superman right now,” Dean reminds him. “So come on, take off your damn coat.”

With a martyred sigh, Cas pushes himself to his feet and starts to struggle out of his coat. But he can’t do it on his own.

“Here,” Dean says, taking hold of the coat to help him. And suddenly everything is charged. The room feels quieter, his own breathing harsher. 

Cas says, “Dean...”

“You gotta straighten your arm, dude.” 

Cas grunts, hisses air through his teeth as he moves, and Dean feels it like a barb in the pit of his stomach. There’s a low tremor building up inside him; he can’t explain what it is or why it’s happening, so he decides to ignore it. Swallowing, he dumps the coat on the back of the sofa and turns to look at Cas. It’s obvious immediately what’s wrong; Dean’s seen it a dozen times. “Yeah,” he says with a wince. “You dislocated your shoulder, man.”

“That sounds bad,” Cas says, glancing down at his arm. “What do I do?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Dean says, and puts a hand on Cas's good shoulder to turn him toward the door. He’s warm under the cool black cotton, his muscle firm under Dean's fingers. “Come on,” Dean says, a little roughly, “it’s easier if you lie down for this.”

They head up to the top floor bedroom because it’s the only one without bunk beds and Dean needs the space. He refuses to think about what else might have happened in that bed, ignores the rumpled sheets. “Take off your shirt,” he says, “I’ll get the med kit.”

Dean takes a moment in the bathroom, braces his arms on the sink and stares at himself in the mirror. He can’t see what’s going on behind his eyes; he can only see his own tense face staring back at him. __

_What are you doing, Dean? What is this?_

He’s got no answers. So he looks away and pulls the med kit from the cupboard under the sink.

When he gets back to the bedroom, Cas is still fiddling one-handed with the buttons of his shirt. He’s not making much progress. “It’s difficult with my left hand,” he explains. 

And that’s not all that’s wrong with him, Dean thinks. Cas is looking pale, washed out. He doubts it’s just because of his arm; Cas has endured a hell of a lot worse than that. Whatever the fuck those bastards did to him, it’s done more damage than a few scrapes and bruises.

Blowing out a steadying breath, Dean crouches down in front of him and says, “Okay, okay, stop.” He bats Cas’s hand out of the way and finishes unbuttoning his shirt for himself. His hands don’t shake, but everything else inside him feels like it's trembling. He’s practically vibrating. 

Cas keeps his head bowed, watching Dean’s hands, his good arm supporting the injured one and his fingers white knuckled around his elbow. He’s breathing fast, Dean notices. Must be the pain.

“Let’s get this off,” Dean says as he pushes to his feet and peels away Cas’s shirt. There’s swelling and bruising around the shoulder joint, of course, and a whole lot of other abrasions on his back. “Man, you took quite a beating.”

Cas glances up and then away before Dean can catch his eye. “It feels like it.”

“Okay, lie down,” Dean says. “Injured arm facing me.”

Cas does as he’s told, still cradling his right arm over his chest. 

Bracing himself, shoulders back, Dean says, “This is gonna hurt like fuck, but then it’ll be better. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Try and relax,” he says and takes hold of Cas’s arm, one hand on his elbow the other clasping his hand. Cas grimaces, turns his head away, but he doesn’t make a sound as Dean rotates his arm to ninety degrees from his body and pulls it out slow and firm. He has to brace a knee against Cas’s ribs to get enough tension.

It seems to take forever. Cas’s jaw is tight, his teeth clenched. He gives a grunt of pain and then there’s a thunk and the joint slips back into place. 

Dean lets out a breath. “Better?” he says, lowering Cas’s arm back down. 

He keeps hold of his hand, though, feels Cas squeeze weakly as he says, “Much better. Thank you, Dean.”

And then they just look at each other, hands clasped, and Dean thinks, _What the fuck are you doing, dude? What the fuck?_

He still has no answer.

Cas looks away, frowning, and lets go of Dean’s hand. He tries to sit up, still cradling his injured arm, and Dean has to help him with a firm hand splayed between his shoulder blades. He can feel his spine under his palm and thinks that Cas has never felt more real, more physical, than he does right now as Dean’s pulling him back together.

“My shirt—” Cas says, looking around.

“Not yet. “ Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Dean turns Cas away from him so that he can examine the rest of the injuries on his back. They all need cleaning and a couple need dressing. He rummages in the med kit and pulls out a pack of sterile wipes and some antiseptic cream. 

There’s a long scrape along the edge of Cas’s right shoulder blade and Dean dabs the spots of blood away, then turns to another scrape closer to his ribs, and so on until everything’s been cleaned up. Neither of them speaks while Dean works. Cas just curls forward, holding his injured arm close, and Dean keeps his mind deliberately blank.

He’s done this kind of thing to Sam more times than he can count. There’s no reason why this should be different.

When everything is clean, he grabs the antiseptic cream and starts to rub it into the scrapes with his fingertips. Just light, dabbing touches on the raw skin. Cas sucks in a breath, holds it, lets it out slowly. 

Dean keeps going with the cream. He spreads a little over the bruising he can see forming on the back of Cas’s ribs. He lets his fingers run over the ridges of his bones, dip to his waist, the top of his hip. 

Cas takes another shivery breath. 

Then Dean lifts his hand up to the swelling around the shoulder joint, traces gentle circles, before he sweeps his fingertips along the tops of Cas’s shoulders. His skin is warm and smooth, and where Cas’s head is bowed forward Dean can see the soft hairs at the nape of his neck. He skims his fingers through them.

Out of the blue, an image blossoms into his mind: _his lips, right there on the warm skin at the nape of his neck._

He swallows hard but doesn’t stop; he can’t stop. There are a couple of little freckles on the span of Cas’s shoulders and Dean traces the space between them, then drags his palm down the long curve of his spine to the small of his back. Gooseflesh rises in the wake of his touch, along his shoulders, across his back. Dean touches it with his fingertips. He knows Cas isn’t cold.

He thinks, _What are you doing?_

He’s never touched a guy like this before; he shouldn’t want to. But he does – he does want to. And it’s terrifying.

Then, in a hoarse voice, Cas says, “Dean…?”

And the spell breaks. 

He yanks his hand away and gets up. He’s shaking, right to the core he’s shaking. “You’re, uh,” he says, throat constricting. “You’re good, man. All set.”

Cas half turns to look over his shoulder. He’s frowning, confused. But there are footsteps on the stairs and when Dean turns to the door it’s in time to see Luca open it. 

“We’re back,” he says, glancing between them. “Your mother is here, Dean. She’s downstairs.”

“Great,” he says and abandons the scattered med kit, abandons everything. “Cas could use a sling,” he says to Luca and heads for the door without looking back.

But he can feel Cas watching him all the way out. And he can feel his skin warm under his fingertips, imagine it under his lips.

He thinks maybe he’s losing his mind.


	8. Chapter 8

“We don’t got a choice,” Dean says, bullish with his arms folded. “We go to this chapel and pull Sam out. No bullshit plan this time, we just do it.”

“No _bullshit_ plan?” Luca says from where he’s leaning in the living room doorway. He looks calm, but Castiel can tell he’s irritated from the glitter in his eyes. “You mean no plan at all.”

“It means they won’t have time to figure out a response.” He jabs a hand toward Castiel without looking at him. “I mean, come on, they _knew_ Cas was gonna be there. And now look at him.”

“It was worth the risk,” Castiel says, straightening up where he’s sitting on the sofa, trying to look less exhausted than he feels. “We had to try.”

“That ain’t the point,” Dean says, but keeps his glare fixed on Luca as he speaks. He’s not looked at Castiel once since… Since whatever it was that had happened in the bedroom. “Now you’re hurt,” he growls, “you’re powerless, and we’ve lost pretty much the only thing we had going for us.”

 _The only thing we had going for us._

Castiel tries not to take it personally. He knows what Dean means. He knows he doesn’t consider him a weapon these days. Not _just_ a weapon.

“So what do you suggest?” Luca says, reaching into his pocket for his cigarettes. “Knock on the front door?” He puts one in his mouth and strikes a match.

Dean says, “Do you mind?”

There’s a pause while Luca lights up. “Mind what?”

“That,” Dean says. “Take it outside, man.”

Luca takes a long pull on his cigarette, blows smoke. “Your ‘plan’,” he says, “will get us all killed. Probably, we will all die tomorrow. So, no, I don’t mind. You don’t like it? _You_ stand outside.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Castiel watches Dean’s fist clench and unclench at his side before he says, “How do we even know you didn’t tip them off, huh?”

“Dean,” Castiel says, “that’s—”

“No, man, he’s one of them,” Dean says. “He’s a Man of Letters. How do we know he didn’t set the whole thing up?”

Luca snorts a laugh. “ _Che palle!”_

“Oh, you think that’s funny?”

“I think you’re ridiculous,” Luca snaps. “You want to fight me, is that it? You want to prove you’re the big man?” He holds up his hands, cigarette between his fingers, “Go ahead, _che cazzo_! It’s easier than doing what you really want.”

“Fuck you,” Dean growls.

“ _I’m_ not the one you want to fuck!” 

“Sonofa—” 

Castiel is off the sofa and catching Dean’s fist in his hand at the same moment Mary yells, “Dean Winchester! Stop it!”

Castiel’s grace may be wounded, but it’s not gone and he marshals every scrap into the look he fixes on Dean. It has an impact; Dean’s eyes go wide and he swallows hard. He looks like he’s trying to catch his breath. “Listen to your mother, Dean,” Castiel says in a low voice. And then he turns to Luca, and in Italian says, “You shouldn’t have said that. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m not blind,” Luca says, also in Italian, his jaw jutted and angry. “He can hardly walk straight he’s so hard for you, Castiel.”

“Stop it.” 

“Don’t you see it? He’s so scared by what he wants that he can’t—”

“ _Stai zitto!_ ” Castiel snaps, because he doesn’t want to hear that. Furious with both of them, he releases Dean’s hand and says in English, “Get your shit together, both of you. We have to focus on finding Sam.”

And then he slumps onto the sofa, grimacing at the pain in his shoulder that he still can’t heal, and tries to catch his breath. He feels exhausted, right down to his aching bones. Dean stalks to the window and stares out onto the street, shoulders tense. Luca resumes his faux-casual lounging in the doorway and takes a pull on his cigarette.

Into the silence, Mary says, “Castiel’s right. We need to work out our next step now that he’s…incapacitated.” To him, she says, “Do you have any idea what happened?”

“Perhaps,” he says. “There are some very ancient, very powerful Enochian sigils – I think this was one of them.” 

From across the room, keeping his back turned, Dean says, “What kind of sigil?” 

“They were developed during the first war in Heaven,” he says, “to damage another angel’s grace and render it powerless.”

“Permanently?” 

Cas closes his eyes, lets himself feel the sputtering energy of his grace. Much like his damaged shoulder, it’s there but not working right. He thinks he can feel his grace healing, though, knitting back together. “I don’t think so,” he says. “At least, I hope not.” 

Out the corner of his eye, he sees Dean’s head drop forward. It might be in relief, perhaps. 

“That’s good,” Mary says. “That’s good news.”

Castiel turns to look at Luca. None of this is his battle and he finds himself wondering why he’s sticking around. “Do you think Sam’s in the Pyx Chapel now? Do you think he was even in that convoy?”

Luca shrugs. “I think he is, yes. It’s their safest location. But you won’t get in. You’ve seen what they can do…”

From the window, Dean says, “I could get in.”

“How?” Luca says. “You think you’re _Team America_ now?”

Dean doesn’t turn around, he just says, “If they’re looking for me, I guess they’ll let me in.”

Castiel huffs out an irritable sigh. “Well that’s an original plan. Sacrificing yourself for Sam. They’ll never see that coming, Dean.”

“You got a better idea?” Dean snaps, turning around. “Has your boyfriend?”

Castiel is silent, partly because of the word _boyfriend_. 

“No?” Dean says when no one speaks. “Didn’t think so.”

“Dean—” Mary starts, but he cuts her off.

“Mom, it’s okay. Me and Sammy – we’ll figure it out, okay? We’re better off together.” He glances at Castiel and then back to his mom. “We always are.”

Castiel drops his head, stares down at his shoes. This is what it always comes down to with Dean – him and Sam, together. Always together. And whatever Dean might feel for Castiel, it doesn’t really matter because, in the end, it always comes down to Sam. 

Dean is the center of Castiel’s world, but Sam is the center of Dean’s. And that’s how it will always be.

***

After his interrogation by the Men of Letters – the ‘Old Men’ as Toni Bevell calls them – Sam’s taken elsewhere.

He sits in the back of an SUV with Toni at his side and he watches London sweep past through darkened windows. He’s never visited the city before, so it’s all kind of a blur. The buildings are a clash of old and new and there are people everywhere, weaving through the slow-moving traffic. Lots of tourists, lots of selfie-sticks, lots of bikes.

It’s dizzying to be here, after everything he’s been through. After losing Dean. None of it feels real.

Eventually the car turns off the road and sweeps down into an underground parking lot. Enormous iron gates open before it and swing shut behind. The word dungeon springs to mind.

“You’ll be staying here for a while,” Toni says, pulling out her phone and tapping the screen. “Excuse me a moment,” she says, and puts the phone to her ear. “It’s me,” she says. “I got your message. What happened?”

Sam watches her, but her face remains impassive as she listens, her gaze fixed on nothing, until she says, “I see. That’s unfortunate, but I did warn them it’s powerful.” And then, “Yes. The Pyx Complex.”

She ends the call, lips pursed, and takes a moment to gather her thoughts before slipping her phone into her bag. “Out you get,” she says to Sam. “You could do with a rest and something to eat, I expect.”

He feels his eyebrows rise. “Uh, yeah.”

She smiles, a small tight expression. “Don’t worry, Sam,” she says, “we’re not taking you to the Tower.”

He’s not sure what tower she means, so just says, “Good, I guess.”

Toni slips out of the car, and then someone opens Sam’s door and he climbs out with a nod of thanks. The iron gates have closed behind them and there’s a heavy steel door ahead. It’s richly engraved with a dozen different warding sigils – some of which he recognizes, some of which he doesn’t. 

“Safest place in the world,” Toni tells him as she heads for the door.

It’s what he used to think about the bunker, until Lucifer infiltrated it and almost killed him, until Amara burned away its sigils, until Toni ambushed him in the dark. “Nowhere’s ever safe,” he tells her and she cuts him a quick look, like he’s making a threat.

To deflect the suspicion, he nods toward the door as they approach. “Some of those are Enochian,” he says. “Trouble with angels?”

“With one in particular, yes,” she says. “Your friend, in fact.”

“Cas?”

“Lucifer.”

He bristles, feels the old sick fear run down his spine. “No friend of mine.”

“No?” She puts her hand to the door and the iron glows, all the sigils burning white for a moment, before the door clicks open. “I heard he’d been quite pally with the Winchester brothers recently. Sleep-overs and everything.”

Sam feels his jaw clench and struggles to swallow the bitter taste in his mouth. “If you think that was anything but horrendous then you’re very wrong. Lucifer—” It takes a moment to get his voice under control. “Lucifer has tormented me for _years_. Working with him like that?” He shudders. “Well, we thought we had no choice. Turns out, we didn’t need him at all.” All that suffering was for nothing – his, Cas’s, and Dean’s.

Toni pushes open the door, ushers Sam through. “A reckless choice, then, to free him.”

“That wasn’t—” 

“No,” she says. “That was the other fallen angel, wasn’t it? Castiel.”

“He thought he was doing the right thing.” 

She lifts a well-groomed eyebrow. “From what I understand, Castiel _always_ thinks it’s doing the right thing. And rarely is.”

“Yeah?” He matches her arch expression with one of his own. “Kinda like you guys right now then, huh?”

Her expression tightens. She’s good at the poker face, but not so good that she can hide the flash of anger. He files that information away and turns to look around.

They’re standing in a well-lit corridor, but Sam’s been in enough dark places to know that this is deep underground. He can feel the weight of the earth above him. “Where are we?” 

The door swings shut behind them, and although it doesn’t clang ominously, Sam gets the distinct impression of prison doors closing.

“This is the Pyx Complex,” Toni says, leading him forward along the corridor. There are doors and other corridors branching off and through one he glimpses an archive – shelves upon shelves of document boxes. In another, books. It’s like the bunker on steroids. “It’s the heart of the Men of Letters operation,” she says. “Not just the London chapter. I mean the whole network.”

“This is where it started,” Sam guesses.

“Yes. Of course there have always been hunters of the supernatural – witch-finders, that kind of thing – but it wasn’t until the Normans came along that it began to be organized.”

“The—” He trips over his tongue trying to recalibrate his mind. “The Normans? You mean the Norman conquest?”

“Ten-sixty-six and all that,” she says. “They didn’t found the Men of Letters, of course. That happened much later, during the Enlightenment, naturally, but it was the Normans who began to centralize the collection of information.” She smiles at him, as if it’s some kind of private joke. “They liked their lists, for which we’re very grateful – some of our records date back to just after the conquest. It’s fascinating.” She waves a hand toward another room as they pass. Sam glimpses a bank of computers. “As you can imagine, digitizing it is a real bore. But we’re making progress.”

Sam just shakes his head, torn between being amazed and monumentally pissed off. “All of this,” he says as they walk on, “you’ve got all of this and we never knew… I can’t— I can’t imagine how much all of this would have helped me and Dean.” He tries to swallow, but can’t. “It might even have saved him.”

Toni looks down, frowns. For the first time he sees something more human in her face. “It’s— It’s not that simple, Sam.”

“Isn’t it? You guys said you’ve been keeping tabs on us. You didn’t think of getting on a damn plane and coming to offer some _help_?”

She shakes her head. “The Men of Letters – the American chapter – they were… uncooperative. For decades before they were wiped out, they’d resisted our oversight. They had their own ideas and, in fairness, their own problems. So much of all this information is irrelevant to places with such light human habitation.” She tips her head. “You understand, yes?” 

“Yeah, I get it. They didn’t want to be dictated to by you guys, so they broke away, right?”

She smiles. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? But essentially, that’s what happened. There was a falling out and contact was intermittent for about a century. And then everything went silent.” She sighs. “Of course, we know now what happened, but at the time...”

“That still doesn’t explain why you were sitting over here, twiddling your thumbs, while Dean and I—”

She stops, turns to face him. “Don’t for a minute think,” she says, “that we’ve been ‘twiddling our thumbs’. We deal with things that you and your brother couldn’t even _conceive_. Dangerous things, Sam.” She tightens her lips, but her eyes flash with anger. “And you’re not the only one to have lost someone you care about in the fight. Remember that.”

Then she’s walking again. Sam waits a beat before he follows, unsurprised by her revelation. “Who did you lose?” he says as he catches her up.

Her steps falter but she doesn’t stop. “It’s not about me.”

“Yeah it is,” Sam says, watching her out the corner of his eye. “It’s always about the people we lose – for me it started with my mom, then Jess and my dad, and now—” He clears his throat, fights to keep it together. “Now Dean, too.”

Toni’s lips are pinched as she looks at him sideways. “My sister,” she says after a curt pause. “And her husband.”

“I’m sorry.”

She nods and keeps walking. “Their son— He was just a baby when it happened, and now he lives with me. I’m bringing him up for them.”

Something about that makes Sam ache, a memory of Dean, perhaps. Except Dean had only been a kid himself when they’d lost their mom and he’d been forced to raise Sam himself. His throat tightens and he has to clear it a couple times before saying, “That’s— How old is he? The little boy?”

“Five now,” she says, with a small smile. “Edward. He’s—” She lifts her chin, swallows. “He’s a lot like his mum. He’s lovely.”

They don’t speak much more; there’s not much else to say and Sam’s too full of thoughts of Dean and his own messed up childhood to be able to spare much sympathy for Toni. He’s the one being held prisoner, after all.

But as it turns out, his prison is pretty comfortable: a room with a bed, a table and chair, power – even a small _en suite_ bathroom. It reminds him of his room in the bunker.

“Get some sleep,” Toni says as she opens the door for him. “Pax Atherton wants to see you later.”

Sam blinks at the name before he remembers. “The hunter?”

“He’s got an interest in the matter, as you can probably imagine.” She smiles and is all cool reserve once more. “Hunters have been around much longer than the Men of Letters. They often see things differently. I think you’ll like him.”

With that, she closes the door and the lock clicks. There are sigils on the door, on the walls, and even on the ceiling. They’re subtle, but he can make them out against the white paint, and he wonders whether they’re designed to keep him in, or other things out. Either way, he figures he should probably start looking for a way out, but the truth is he’s exhausted. His shoulder aches where his wound is healing and the bed looks inviting.

Besides, he’s kinda curious to talk to this Pax Atherton…

***

Dean lies on the bunk in his room and tries to relax. 

It’s not easy. His blood is pumping; he’s fucking _furious_ with Luca Moretti. He hates that stuck-up, arrogant sonofabitch. And he doesn’t trust him an inch. But Cas does, and Cas—

_Cas._

__He scrubs a hand over his face, as if that could scrub away what had happened upstairs – the way he’d touched him, the way it had made him _want_... 

Jesus, the way he _still_ wants. The way—

There’s a knock on the door, light but not tentative, and a moment later his mom pokes her head inside. “Were you asleep?”

“No.” He sits up, swings his legs off the edge of the bed. “No, I was just…” He clears his throat and presses his face into his hands to try and clear his thoughts. “Sorry,” he says then, letting his hands fall away. “About earlier, I mean.”

Closing the door behind her, his mom comes to sit on the bed next to him. She sits, like him, with her arms on her knees and her hands clasped. “You were disappointed that we didn’t get Sam back today,” she says with a nod. “I get it. So was I.”

“I know.” He puts a hand on her back to reassure. “But we will, okay? I swear.”

She nods. “I believe you, Dean. He’s… Sam’s very important to you, isn’t he?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says – it’s kind of a dumb question. “He’s everything to me, mom. Always has been.”

Another nod and then silence for a while. 

“You okay?” he asks when the silence carries on longer than is comfortable. “I mean, you know, aside from the whole ‘coming back from the dead and then going in search of your missing son’ crap?”

She smiles at that, nods and gets to her feet. There’s a narrow sash window in the room and she goes to it, staring out at the darkening street. “I, uh, I guess you don’t like Luca so much, huh?”

“Not so much, no.”

Still looking out the window she says, “I guess some people don’t like that kind of thing. They think it’s unnatural, or whatever.”

“Mom, no—”

“I just think,” she carries on, “when you’ve seen something really unnatural – demons, vampires drinking some kid dry, wendigos tearing out a heart… When you’ve seen things like that, Dean, then you’ve got have a different perspective on things.”

“No, I get that. I do. I don’t— That’s not why I don’t like him…” He swallows, because maybe it partly is, only not for the reasons his mom thinks.

She gives a sad laugh and turns away from the window. “Your dad,” she says with a fond shake of her head. “Your dad…”

“Yeah,” Dean says shortly. “I can guess.”

“Can you?” She tips her head. “Maybe he told you this, then?”

Dean’s not sure what she means, and it maybe shows because she carries on talking, leaning her back against the wall.

“When he was in Vietnam he had this buddy – Karl Glassner. They were tight, you know? Real brothers-in-arms. Anyway, I guess things got pretty bad out there. John didn’t talk about it much, but he told me this: one day he finds Karl and this other guy – Jack, I think his name was – he finds them… Well, you know. Together.”

Dean nods, clenches his hands on his knees. He can guess where this is going. “Mom,” he says, not wanting to hear it. “I—”

“No, listen,” she says. “Karl’s freaking out, of course, because back then— Well, it was illegal for a start, and in the army? It would have cost him his career, at least. But John said to me, he said, ‘There was so much shit going on out there, Mary, so much _horror_ , I just thought, if this one good thing can come out if it, then that’s a win.’ So he kept quiet, didn’t tell a soul.”

“ _Really_?” And, okay, that’s not how Dean had expected the story to end. 

“Really. You see, these two guys had found each other in the middle of a war zone… I mean love is love, right? You take it where you can find it and you don’t question it when you do. That’s how John saw it, anyway. Something beautiful coming out of something ugly.” 

About all Dean can do right then is nod, because… _Dad_? He feels dizzy, like his center of balance is relocating ten degrees east. Dad had kept that quiet? Dad had had those guys’ backs because— 

_Love is love._

__He has to look down at his clenched hands; he can’t meet his mom’s eyes. He feels like his skin’s been peeled off, like he’s completely exposed. But he hears her walk past him, feels her hand on his head, running her fingers through his hair.

“John must have been so proud of you, Dean. Of what you are, what you’ve become.” His throat closes and he just nods, can’t risk speaking as she bends down and kisses the top of his head. “And so am I. So, so proud, Dean.”

And then she’s gone, closing the door behind her, and Dean just sits with his head in his hands. Stunned.

Dad had never, not once, mentioned anything about Karl – about any of it. And he’d always been so… So fucking _macho_ about everything. 

_Don’t whine, Dean. Don’t cry. Man up. Get your shit together, boy._

__He’d put a gun Dean’s his hand instead of a catching mitt and Dean had— So help him, he’d lapped it up. He’d relished the hunts and the adrenaline – way better than school, right? And he’d tried so damn hard to be the man he thought his dad was, the man he thought his dad wanted him to be: hard drinking, hard fighting, and straight as a fucking arrow.

But now he wonders whether he even knew his dad at all. Because maybe he just hadn’t been around enough to show Dean what he really was – or what a man really was. Maybe he’d been too damn broken to know.

Either way, Dean had latched onto the machismo and let it shape him. He’d turned himself into a cliché of every fucking action hero Hollywood ever spewed out, even when, deep down, he was something different. 

Even when he wanted something different. _Someone_ different.

Revelations tumble over each other in their haste to get out, and Dean chokes back a sob, tries to stifle it with the knuckles of one fist. He’s tearing apart inside. A wall is coming down, a shoddy, patched together thing he’s been shoring up for _years_. It’s all coming down, the whole fucking edifice is crumbling into the dirt, and behind it….

Behind it he sees the truth he’s been hiding from all these years – and it’s love. It’s just _love_.

He loves Cas. He’s _in love_ _with_ Cas. 

And suddenly everything makes sense – every lingering look, every yearning touch, every agonizing flare of thwarted desire. He almost laughs, but his throat’s still choked and it comes out wet and ragged.

He’s in love with Cas. 

And he _wants_ him. God, he wants him so much – he wants to touch him, to kiss him, to explore every fucking inch of him. He wants to make him smile, to make him laugh – to mark him and make him his own. And he needs him. Shit, he needs him so _much_ and—

And he can’t have him. 

He can’t have any of it because he had his chance – Cas fucking handed it to him on a plate – and he blew it. 

_You and me? We’re brothers._

__Brothers?He groans into his hands – he’s such a freakin’ _moron_ – because now Cas is with Luca fucking Moretti.

And Dean is totally screwed.


	9. Chapter 9

By the time Dean’s gotten himself together enough to go back downstairs, the house is silent. He heads for the kitchen and snags the last crappy Italian beer from the refrigerator and wonders if his bogus credit card will work in England. He could use some real beer, if they even sell real beer here.

He flips the top off, and that’s when he notices the note on the counter. 

_We’ve gone to buy food_. _Castiel is sleeping. Back soon, Mom_.

The fact that he doesn’t recognize her handwriting hurts. Funny, how these little hurts get you right out of the blue. It looks like a stranger’s writing. It could be a stranger’s writing. Luca might have abducted his mom and he’d never know that wasn’t her writing in the note.

“Get a grip,” he tells himself. “Get a goddamn grip.”

Leaving the note, he heads in to the living room. Maybe he’ll see what British TV is like? He’s two steps into the room when he stops dead. Cas is crashed out on one of the sofas. He’s on his back, injured arm strapped across his chest, and his other hand up next to his head, his face turned toward his fingers.

He’s completely out of it. And Dean is transfixed. 

He can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he’s seen Cas sleep, and mostly that’s some desperate moment with his powers failing and threat breathing down their necks. 

He’s not sure he’s ever seen him like this: the way his face has relaxed out of its perpetual frown, the way his hands, so accustomed to violence, are curling gently, the way his hair is falling over his forehead. It makes him look too human, too accessible. Too... 

He can’t bring himself to think the words; it’s still too new. He barely knows what to do with this feeling, barely knows how to let himself stand there and ache and want and not crush the emotions before they take shape.

_I love you._

__He tries out the words inside his head, says them to himself while he’s looking at Cas sleeping on the sofa. His chest is rising and falling, lips parted. He’s taken off his shoes and Dean, bizarrely, can’t stop looking at his socks. He wears socks.

Of course he wears fucking socks!

He wets his lips, tempted to look away; it’s too much, he feels too much. But he’s been a coward about this too long, so instead he makes himself go sit on the other sofa and fixes his eyes on Cas. 

From outside comes the low rumble of traffic, but inside the room the only sound is Cas’s steady breathing. If he let himself, Dean could imagine lying awake at night and listening to the sound of Cas breathing right next to him. 

_Stupid—_

__But, no. He cuts off the denial and makes himself face the idea. He imagines lying awake at night with Cas right next to him. He imagines listening to him breathe, maybe with their arms touching, warm and solid. Maybe with Cas’s head heavy on his shoulder. Maybe curled around him, spooned together.

His pulse kicks up a notch and his stomach clenches – he wants that, the closeness, the intimacy, the warmth. He wants that, he realizes, as much as he wants anything else.

It’s a revelation, exploring these forbidden thoughts – thoughts he’s forbidden to himself – as he watches the steady rise and fall of Cas’s chest. 

So he lets his gaze drift, settle on his mouth… It’s familiar to him, as if he’s studied it before. And he has, he realizes. Even when he refused to acknowledge why, he’d imagined kissing those lips, being kissed by them. The first time was… Yeah, now he thinks about it, he can remember the first time the thought had crashed into his mind. 

It happened when Cas had one hand pressed over Dean’s mouth, his body like iron against him, and his eyes steely with power and challenge: _if I give up everything for you, Dean Winchester, will you see this through? Are you worthy of my sacrifice? Of my faith?_

He wasn’t, of course. How could he be? Castiel is divine, celestial, eternal, and Dean is just a man – a really fucking flawed one at that. 

But Cas has fallen for him time and again, each time harder than the last. And he keeps coming back, keeps offering Dean his trust, his loyalty, his _love_. 

And what has Dean given back? 

Nothing. 

He hadn’t even recognized that he loved him – _how_ he loved him – and he certainly hadn’t told him. He’s taken, and taken, and taken from Cas. He’s blamed him, fought him, taken him for granted, and no matter what he’s done, Cas has always been there for him. Every time, right up until the end.

 _I could come with you_ , he’d said, when Dean had left to lay his head on the block _. I could come with you._ Not to help him, not to save him, just to bear witness – just to be there so Dean didn’t have to die alone.

And what had he given him in return? Nothing but fucking _cowardice_. 

So now he’s lost him and it’s his own damn fault. And Dean gets it, he does; he could never have deserved Cas anyway. “I’m sorry,” he says, quiet so as not to wake him. “I’m so sorry, man.”

He gets up, about to leave, but stops halfway to the door, his gaze lingering. It’s cool in the room and Cas is only wearing a shirt. He looks cold.

On the back of the sofa, Cas’s coat lays folded where Dean had left it earlier. He hesitates for a moment, then thinks, _screw it_ , and reaches over to pick it up. Shaking it out, he lays it over Cas, tucking it around his good shoulder. He lets his hand linger, light on his arm, for a moment and then – God help him – he threads his fingers through that crop of dark hair, pushing it back from his forehead. 

Cas stirs and Dean pulls his hand away.

Which is when he notices Luca watching him from the hallway, a bag of takeout in his hand. Dean hadn’t even heard the front door open.

There’s nothing he can do, no lie that can cover this. Besides, it’s obvious that Luca knows. 

As he turns toward the kitchen, Dean follows, pulling the living room door shut behind him. “Wait,” he says in a low voice. Behind Luca, he can see his mom unpacking food in the kitchen. 

Luca turns, says nothing.

“I’m not trying to fuck anything up,” he says. “I just…” What can he even say?

After a long, appraising look, Luca nods him toward the kitchen. “Come eat some food, Winchester. We’ll let him sleep, yes?”

It’s an uneasy truce, but Dean figures he’ll take it. For Cas.

***

Sam wakes up with no clue as to what time it is – or even what day it is.

He’s staring at a ceiling, at the subtle tracery of Enochian sigils, and for a moment he can’t remember where he is. It’s a blissful moment before memory sinks down on him, a heavy black weight of loss. Dean is gone.

Nothing else really matters.

So he lays there and stares at the ceiling, dimly aware that he’s hungry, that he could use a shower and a shave. That he might want to consider escaping. Cas must be looking for him. He’s probably frantic. Losing Dean would have crushed him – not that he’d ever let it show – and losing Sam right after?

Well, Cas is a master of bottling up his feelings, of hiding and dissembling, but Sam’s pretty certain that he won’t be doing too well out there alone and adrift. He might play the detached angel, but Sam knows Dean’s been the center of his world since pretty much the first moment they met. He figures it’s kind of romantic, in the way epic Greek tragedies are romantic. That is, epically heartbreaking.

So, yeah, he feels bad for Cas and that’s enough to get him moving. Dean would want him to take care of Cas, after all. Not that they’d ever spoken about it explicitly, but, if he hadn’t guessed before, the months of subsonic freaking out Dean had done after Cas said yes to Lucifer would have been enough to tell him how important Cas was to him.

Pushing himself out of bed, Sam heads into the bathroom. The shower is small, but the water pressure is excellent. The Men of Letters obviously like their plumbing. There are clean towels, shower gel, shampoo – even a razor. 

He feels more human when he’s done, dresses in clean clothes, and wipes the steam from the mirror long enough to stare at his reflection. He tries to see something of Dean in himself, some flicker of that hard, bright gaze he misses too much, but all he sees is himself staring mournfully back.

Turning away, he pushes open the bathroom door and steps back into the cool of his room.

And stops.

“Alright?” says the man sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed. “Thought you’d be hungry, so I got us a takeaway.”

Sam stares. “You’re…”

“Pax, yeah,” he says, uncurling his legs and standing up. “Short for Paxton, but that’s bloody arsey, right?” He holds out his hand. “Good to meet you, Sam. Sorry about all this shit.”

Nonplussed, Sam shakes his hand. The door to his room, he notices, is standing open.

“Yeah,” we can leave Pax says. “Lady P’s given me ‘permission’ to take you to the break room to eat.”

Sam blinks. “Lady P?”

Pax grins and picks up a plastic bag from the floor. “Toni,” he says. “I call her Lady P ’cause she’s a bit ‘Lady Penelope’ – know what I mean?” He grins at Sam’s blank stare. “Nah, you probably never saw _Thunderbirds_.” 

Sam has no idea what he’s talking about. 

“With the puppets?”

“I don’t think so, no.” 

“Yeah, well, if you had you’d know what I mean.” He affects a different accent, nose in the air. “Oh, well _done_ , Parker!” And then he laughs. “Nah, but she’s alright once you get past the Young Tory shell – you know, for a MoL.”

Clearing his throat, Sam smiles even though he has no idea what Pax is talking about. He thinks this must have been what it was like for Cas talking to Dean _. I don’t understand that reference_. Sam pushes a hand through his damp hair and says, “A mol?” 

“Man of Letters?” Pax tips his head, frowns, and suddenly Sam sees a very different man – astute and dangerous. “You lot really don’t know much about it, do you?”

“About what?”

He waves his arm in a circle, taking in the whole edifice. “Everything.” Then the grin is back and he says, “Hope you like curry?”

Sam thinks it’ll make for a strange breakfast, but then again... “What time is it?” 

“It’s always curry time, mate.” Pax picks up the bag of food. “C’mon, let’s go and eat.”

He leads them along another corridor, and then through what looks, randomly, like a modern open-plan office. They get a few looks and Pax waves to a couple of the suits at their desks.

“I can’t say the MoLs like hunters,” he says, “but they put up with me being here because of the agreement. It’s not as bad as it used to be back when my dad was hunting, of course.”

The break room looks weirdly corporate too – like a company canteen. Pax weaves through the empty tables to one in the far corner and sets down his bag. “Food here’s crap,” he says. “Soggy paninis and cheese’n’pickle sandwiches. Besides, I thought you might like to try a little local cuisine since you’re in London.”

Sam takes a seat, eyes the takeout Pax is pulling from the bag. It smells pretty damn good, he can’t deny it. “Curry is local cuisine in London?”

“You kidding me? It’s the fucking national dish, mate. And that’s a fact.”

“Not fish and chips?”

Pax snorts. “Yeah, maybe in the fifties it was. We need plates.”

Sam watches him take what he needs from the counter, throwing a wink at the woman serving. He’s not sure what he was expecting from this English hunter, but it definitely wasn’t this.

“I got tikka masala because – classic,” Pax says when he gets back and starts opening the containers. “Madras – my favorite, but pretty hot. And a korma, in case you’re more of a girl’s blouse than you look, Winchester.” He grins again but there’s a challenge in the expression.

“I’ll try everything,” Sam decides, meeting that challenge, and starts to help himself.

And, yeah, he’s got to say, it’s pretty _amazing_. Even the madras, which threatens to burn off the roof of his mouth.

Pax grins as Sam reaches for the water, but says nothing until at least half of Sam’s plate is empty, then he says, “So, how much have they told you?”

“About what?”

“All of it.”

Sam shrugs. “You were there when they ‘interviewed’ me. That’s pretty much all they’ve told me.”

Pax frowns, grabs a chunk of the doughy bread he’d called something like ‘nan’ and wipes it over the sauce still on his plate before stuffing it into his mouth. With a pang, the gesture reminds Sam of Dean. 

Pax draws his chair closer to the table, leans his elbows on it. “Did they tell you your feathery friend is in town?”

“Cas?” And, yeah, that makes him smile. “No, they didn’t.”

He nods, glances sideways. “Fuckers,” he mutters. “I thought Toni might have…”

“No one said anything,” Sam says, also keeping his voice low. There’s no one else in the room, but it’s pretty clear Pax wants to keep this between the two of them. “Is he trying to free me?” Dumb question, really; of course he is.

“He won’t,” Pax says, his gaze sliding back to Sam’s. “No angel’s getting in here without an invitation – they got sigils up the wazzoo, man. Really powerful shit.”

Sam doesn’t say that he doubts anything can stop Cas if he really puts his mind to it; Cas stopped fighting like an angel a long time ago. He’s as scrappy a street fighter as anyone these days, and Sam’s pretty sure he’ll find a way in. So he just says, “I guess I’ll have to wait and see.”

Pax just shakes his head and frowns. “Listen,” he says, pushing his plate to one side. “I’m gonna tell you something, ’cause these people are fuckers. They don’t know shit about what it’s like being out there, right? And they think hunters—” He shakes his head. “Don’t get me wrong. You and your brother, you’ve sent a lot of crap our way. I mean, serious crap, mate. History’s got deep roots here, know what I mean? And when you shake the tree across the pond it sets all kinds of shit crawling up from the depths. Things we thought we’d buried a thousand fucking years ago. So, yeah. You’re not flavor of the fucking month a lot of the time, but it ain’t no excuse for—” He stops, sniffs. “So, yeah. I’m gonna tell you something, Sam, but you can’t react, right?”

“Okay.”

“I mean it. You’re going to want to, but you can’t react. Because they don’t want you to know and I think that’s just shit. Fuck ’em, right?”

Sam nods. “Right. Fuck ’em.”

Pax’s eyes move to the door, then back to Sam. He says, “The angel isn’t alone here, he’s got someone with him.” There’s a beat and suddenly his expression is keen as a knife. “It’s your brother, Sam. Dean’s alive.”

***

Castiel wakes slowly and notices two things at once. First, someone’s draped his coat over him, and, second, he feels better.

A great deal better.

He sits up, pushes the coat aside, and smiles at the sensation of his grace thrumming whole through his vessel. It’s not perfect, but it’s in one piece again. He tries an experimental flex of his wings, but they feel heavy, dragging, so he stops. Instead, he channels a silver thread of power through the swollen flesh of his damaged shoulder and feels it heal completely.

Satisfied, he slips his arm free of the sling Luca had given him. It feels good to be rid of it. There are still a few abrasions on his back and he hesitates before healing those, stupidly loathe to lose them – the slight discomfort is a reminder of those few moments when Dean had touched him so gently.

He’s ashamed to admit how intimate it had felt, how deeply it had stirred him; being touched like that, by _Dean_ , was possibly the most erotic experience of his life. 

He leaves his back unhealed and gets to his feet. 

From the kitchen he can hear voices and the air is rich with the aroma of food. His stomach growls and he realizes he’s hungry. Clearly, he’s not got all his ‘mojo’ back.

He pushes a hand through his hair and heads toward the kitchen. Dean sees him first, because he’s sitting on the counter facing the door, an aluminum carton of food – Chinese, by the aroma – in one hand and chopsticks in the other.

An emotion Castiel can’t decipher crosses Dean’s face when he sees him, his eyes widening and face flushing. “Uh, hey,” he says, with an uncertain smile. “How you feeling?”

“Much better,” Castiel says as Luca and Mary turn toward him. He flexes his arm, showing off. “My grace is healing very well, although it’s not back to normal yet.”

“Whatever ‘normal’ is,” Dean says.

He recognizes that as a rhetorical question, so doesn’t answer. “Is there any food left? I’m quite hungry.”

There’s plenty of food, and now that Castiel is awake they take it into the living room and finish it in there – he and Luca on one sofa, Dean and Mary on the other.

But there’s a tension in the room Castiel doesn’t fully understand, and Dean keeps not looking at him. Or, rather, looking at him until Castiel catches his eye and then looking away as if he’s been caught doing something wrong.

Luca, too, is behaving strangely. He’s unusually silent until he finishes eating, when he says, in Italian, “Will you be well enough to help, if he goes through with his plan to hand himself in?”

Dean’s eyes, Castiel notices, are on Luca the moment he starts talking. Castiel supposes it’s because he doesn’t trust him. He says, “If you spoke in English, Dean would like you more.” He says it in Italian, though, to avoid a conflict.

“I don’t care if he likes me,” Luca says, leaning back on the sofa. “And answer the question, _angelo_. Be honest with me, even if you won’t be with him.”

“What does that mean?”

“You know what it means, Castiel. ”

And he does, of course. 

“Hey,” Dean says, attempting a smile, “we’re gonna think you guys are talking about us if you keep that up.”

“Apologies,” Castiel says. “Luca was just asking me if I’m well enough to—”

“Whoa!” Dean says, holding up a hand to cut him off. “Dude.”

“Well enough to help you rescue Sam,” Castiel finishes with a frown. Sometimes Dean’s childishness can be endearing, other times…

Perhaps sensing the tension, Mary intervenes, diverting the subject back to what’s important. “And are you?” she says. “You _look_ better.”

“I’m healing all the time,” he says – which is true. “If I rest, by morning I hope I’ll be well enough to be useful.”

Luca snorts at that, shakes his head. “ _Stupido_ ,” he mutters, under his breath.

Castiel ignores him but Dean says. “It ain’t about you being useful, man.” 

Which makes Castiel smile. “Dean, it’s _always_ about me being useful.”

He expects an argument, but Dean just goes quiet, his gaze fixing on the floor. After a pause he says, “Well not this time, okay? I’m not throwing you under the wheels for anyone. Not again.”

In the subsequence silence, Mary puts a hand on Dean’s knee. “How about we all get some rest,” she says, “and see how things stand in the morning?”

Dean nods – “Yeah, okay” – but doesn’t look up.

After another pause, Luca uncoils himself from the sofa, picking up his empty plate from the floor. “I’m going to bed,” he says, in English. And then, in Italian, to Castiel, “Are you coming?”

He gives a nod, but nothing more, and Luca takes Castiel’s empty plate too and heads to the kitchen. Castiel stands up, about to follow, but before he can, Dean says, “Uh, Cas? Can I have a word?”

“Of course.” He steps to the side, allowing Mary to leave, taking her and Dean’s plates, and then it’s just the two of them. 

Dean is looking awkward, again, rubbing at the back of his neck the way he does when he’s uncomfortable. “Uh, listen,” he says, “about earlier.”

Castiel wonders what he means by earlier: the fight with Luca, or the _other thing_. “It’s okay,” he says, which covers both incidents.

“No, man, I was out of line,” Dean says. “I shouldn’t have…”

“Shouldn’t have what, Dean?” If it’s the other thing they’re talking about, he wants to say that he _should_ have – that he wanted him to, _wants_ him to. Wants more than that.

“Accusing Luca of betraying us – it was out of line.”

 _Ah_ , Castiel thinks with familiar disappointment, _that_.

“I was just—” Dean says. “I was worried about Sam.”

Castiel turns to the door. “I understand, Dean. Luca doesn’t—” 

“No.” Dean catches hold of his arm, just enough to stop him, then swiftly lets go. “Listen, I know you guys are… whatever. And I don’t wanna cause trouble, man. I don’t.” And he looks up, fleetingly meeting Castiel’s eye. “It’s good, you know? It’s good that you have something. Someone. That’s not easy to find.”

Castiel can barely hold Dean’s gaze and he’s grateful Dean looks away first. “Yes,” he says and hopes he can’t hear the yearning in his voice. “It’s not easy to find…”

“But, uh,” Dean says, because apparently he’s not finished, “you and me – we’re still good, right?” 

And there’s something uncertain in his voice, as if he actually doubts his place in Castiel’s life – as if Castiel hasn’t given him _everything_. “Of course, Dean,” he says, “you said it yourself, we’re brothers. Family.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” He sighs, his gaze moving to the window. “Cas, look, I’ll always— Me and Sammy? We’re always there for you, okay? I just want you to know that. You’ve always got a place with us, man. Don’t matter what else happens, you’re—” He swallows, clears his throat and after a pause says, “We love you, you know? Me and Sam. We love you, man.”

It’s not something Dean’s ever said before and Castiel is astonished, lit up by the words. “Thank you,” he says, because he _is_ thankful. “I just wish –” No, that’s unfair.

But Dean’s head snaps back around. “You wish what?”

“Nothing.”

“Cas,” his voice drops into something intense. “Cas, _what_?”

He shakes his head, thinks back to those weeks, months, even years when he’d felt adrift. Homeless in the most profound sense: un-trusted and untrustworthy. “I suppose I wish I’d known before.”

Dean blinks. He looks like he’s holding his breath. “Before…?”

“Before Lucifer.”

It’s clearly not the answer Dean was expecting. “What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“The hell it doesn’t. What do you mean, Cas?”

He shakes his head, and really he’s too tired for this; none of it matters anyway. 

But Dean’s not letting it go. “Cas,” he says, “c’mon…”

“I know you think I did something heroic when I let Lucifer in,” he says, “but that’s not true. I didn’t step up, Dean. I stepped back.”

“What do you mean you stepped back?”

“I just didn’t think what happened to me would matter,” he admits. “I felt expendable, I suppose. So I thought ‘why not?’ Why not give Lucifer a shot? He had to be more use than me.”

Dean’s silent for a long time before he growls, “ _Christ,_ Cas.” 

“I’m not blaming you,” he says, quickly. “I’m not—”

“Well you _should_ ,” Dean snaps, turning away so Castiel can’t see his face. “I was your _friend_ , man, and I let you believe…”

“Dean—”

“You have _no idea_ ,” he says brokenly, “no fucking idea what a jerk I am, Cas. No clue.”

It’s distressing, seeing him like this; Castiel doesn’t understand why he’s so upset. He puts a hand on his arm to turn him back around. “Dean, please.” 

And suddenly Dean’s grabbing him, hauling him into a fierce hug. “I’m sorry,” he breathes into Castiel’s shoulder, his fingers digging into the flesh of his arms. “Cas, I’m _so sorry_.”

Castiel pats him awkwardly on the back and says “It’s okay” because that’s what people say in these situations. But what he means is: _there’s nothing you could ever do that would stop me from loving you, or helping you, or wanting you. I will love you until the end of creation._

 __But of course he can’t say any of that.

And then there are footsteps in the hallway and Dean is letting go, turning away and scrubbing a hand across his face.

From the doorway Luca says, “Castiel, come to bed.” He says it in English.

Dean takes a deep breath, straightens his shoulders, and, to his back, Castiel says, “Well. Goodnight, Dean.”

His only reply is a stiff-necked nod.

 


	10. Chapter 10

It’s better now they’re doing something other than hanging around the house. It’s easier to know where to look when Cas isn’t standing right there in the kitchen, looking sleepy and undone, a glimpse of collarbone visible beneath the open neck of his shirt before he yawns and buttons it up. It’s easier not to think about how much he fucked everything up with Cas when he’s concentrating on getting Sam back.

So, yeah, it’s better now they’re moving, putting Plan B into action. They’re in a cab – a genuine London black cab – to save on Cas’s juice, heading for Westminster Abbey. Dean stares out the window as they drive, his mom at his side and Cas next to her. Luca’s on a weird little fold-down seat, facing backward. Dean’s trying to get his bearings, but none of the city is recognizable from yesterday’s trip. Eventually the cab pulls over and they pile out onto the crowded sidewalk. 

Westminster Abbey is one big-assed church set in the middle of what looks like tourist-central. There are people everywhere, security barriers, cops, and stalls selling food and tacky souvenirs; it hardly seems like the place for a top secret organization to base itself. It’s kinda surreal and Dean finds himself missing his Baby, the wide open places of home – even the skanky monsters they hunt. This city just feels so _foreign_.

“I hate this,” he mutters as he gets out the cab.

While Luca pays the driver, Cas comes to stand with Dean, hands in his coat pockets, gazing up at the massive abbey. “Imagine,” he says, “the faith it took to build this place when you had nothing to work with but your hands – no machinery, no power, nothing but blood and sweat. And all of it for the glory of a god who didn’t care.”

He’s not sure what to say to that; he’d put the same point to Chuck himself, and hadn’t gotten much of an answer. But Cas hadn’t even gotten that much from his deadbeat dad. And Dean hates that. Now it’s too late, he wishes he’d asked Chuck about Cas – about how Cas had searched for him, how Chuck had been _right there_ and had never reached out a hand to his son despite all Cas’s longing.

Behind them, the cab pulls away from the kerb and Luca says, “This way,” and leads them away from the crowds and down a side street next to the abbey. It’s not exactly deserted, but it’s quiet enough that they can stop moving without causing a blockage. Luca draws them over to one side, in the shadow of a tall brick building. “There is an entrance at the end of this street – it is for cars, but of course it is monitored.” His gaze fixes on Dean. “I still maintain this is reckless. Once inside, it will be difficult—”

“I get it,” he says, cutting him off. “But it’s the best we got. So…” He looks at Cas – it’s easier to look at him when it’s all business, when he’s not thinking about any of the other crap weighing heavy in his chest. “You sure you got enough juice for this, man?”

Cas nods. “If you can break some of the more powerful sigils, yes.”

Big if, but he’ll cross that bridge later. To his mom, he says, “Stay with Luca, okay? When we come out, we’ll be coming out hot – and we’ll need a way to get outa here if Cas...” He doesn’t want to finish the thought.

Luckily, Cas does it for him. “It would be advisable to have a car ready,” he says mildly. “This will probably take quite a bit out of me.”

Which makes something coil up in tight the pit of Dean’s stomach, an old familiar terror. 

Luca mutters under his breath and reaches for his cigarettes. “I think,” he says, lighting up, “that I should go with Dean.”

“What?”

He shrugs and blows smoke away from them. “I’m a Man of Letters – they know me. Perhaps they won’t kill you if I’m with you?”

“Maybe they’ll kill us both?” Dean says, and casts a glance at Cas.

He’s staring at Luca intently – the kind of stare that always sends a shiver down the length of Dean’s spine. He used to think it was intimidation, now he realizes it’s something much more complex. “Luca,” Cas says, followed by a string of something fast and Italian. Luca replies the same way and the only words Dean can understand are his own name. 

The result of the brief exchange leaves Cas glowering and Luca sucking in a deep pull on his cigarette. “I will go with you,” he tells Dean, “and do my best to keep you safe.”

“I don’t need anyone to keep me—” 

“Dean,” his mom says. “Don’t be stupid. You don’t have to be a martyr.”

“I’m not—”

“Then say yes,” she says. “And thank you.”

Luca smirks a little and says, “Thanks isn’t necessary, but you’re welcome.” Then he turns to Cas and says, “Don’t do anything rash, Castiel. Wait until it’s safe.”

Cas just lifts his chin. “I’ll wait until I’m _needed_ ,” he says.

And Dean almost laughs; he’s been on the receiving end of that smity look before. But then Cas turns his _don’t give me any of your crap_ look on him and Dean loses the smile. He clears his throat and hopes he doesn’t look as turned on as he feels. Damnit. “Okay,” he says, turning away, “let’s do it.”

They leave his mom and Cas in the alley and Luca leads Dean to what looks like an underground garage with huge fucking gates. “Huh,” he says, “welcome to Mordor.”

Squinting up at the iron grill, Luca says, “They will be monitored; if they open, it’s because they recognize you.”

Comforting. He clears his throat and glances over at the man – wiry, strong, but older than Dean. “Listen,” he says, “uh, thanks. You don’t owe me or Sam anything, so I—”

“No,” Luca says, “I don’t.”

“Right, so thanks for—”

“I’m here for Castiel.” He drops the butt of his cigarette onto the ground. “I’m here to keep you safe, because that’s what he wants. And to keep him safe, because that’s what I want.”

He’s not entirely sure what to make of that, but he’s saved from having to reply by the movement of the doors, swinging inward. He swallows. “Last chance to back out.”

“That chance expired a long time ago,” Luca says, and steps through, Dean following.

They walk down a ramp and into a parking lot. There are a couple of SUVs there, but mostly it’s empty. Ahead is a closed steel door covered in wardings. He can see the devil trap in the ceiling above it, and the walls to either side gleam with their own protections. It’s not fanciful to think that he can feel the power radiating from the place; it stinks of magic.

Their footsteps echo in the empty space. “Okay,” he says, looking around for the camera he knows has to be there somewhere. “Okay!” Louder this time. He holds up his hands. “You got me! Here I am – what are you waiting for?”

“Just one thing,” says the voice from behind him.

He turns and finds the muzzle of a gun ten inches from at his nose. 

“Dean Winchester,” says the woman standing before him. She’s petite and blonde, with a cool English reserve that makes his skin crawl. “Your brother,” she said, “didn’t think I’d shoot. Don’t make the same mistake.”

Lifting his hands he sees other figures emerge from the shadows. They weren’t there before, so he assumes they’re using some kind of magic. “I’m not here to fight,” he says, lifting his hands. “I’m just here for Sam.”

“Of course you are,” the woman says. Her attention moves past him. “Luca Moretti, I presume? I expected more from a Man of Letters. But I hear you’ve been dabbling in _things_ you really shouldn’t.”

“The English chapter is as open minded as ever, I see,” Luca says. “Perhaps your operation would be more effective if it used the allies it has instead of trying to leash them?”

The woman – Antonia, apparently – just says, “Unfortunately, as the saying goes, with friends like these…?” Her gaze moves back to Dean. “Where’s the angel?”

He plays dumb. “Huh?”

“The angel,” she says. “Where is it?”

“ _It_ ,” he says, irked, “is getting ready to kick your limey ass, lady.”

“Hmm,” she says, and cocks her weapon, “let’s see about that, shall we?” 

Her finger tightens on the trigger, Luca shouts “No!” and the gun fires. 

Dean hears the crack of the gunshot, flings himself away at the same moment the air shifts and energizes around him. And then Cas is there, his hand over the muzzle of the gun, stopping the bullet, and his wings rising in ragged shadows at his back.

“You will not harm him,” he says in a voice like steel and fire. 

“Well,” says Antonia, “as it happens, it’s not really Dean that I’m interested in hurting.” And then there’s the strike of a match and the flare of holy fire, running in a circle around both Cas and Antonia. She smiles. “Hello Castiel, I’ve been hunting you for a long time.”

Dean staggers to his feet, dazed from the force of his landing. “ _Hunting_ him?”

Her gaze flicks to him. “Irritating as you boys are, Dean, you don’t really think that the Men of Letters would go to this much trouble just to capture a couple of _hunters_ , do you?” 

“Then…” He looks at Cas, at the flare of his wings, at the divine light in his eyes, and he understands. “Then we were just the _bait_?”

“We were afraid Sam might not be enough,” she says, “so imagine our delight when you showed up alive and well?”

Pulling the weapon from her hand and tossing it aside, Cas grabs her by her shirt. “Let him go,” he says, “let them all go or I _will_ kill you.”

“Yes, I know you’re quite capable of cold blooded murder. Unfortunately – for you – we know how to leash angels, even fallen ones.” 

With that she slaps her hand to his chest and Cas crumples, doubling over. Free of him, she steps neatly over the flames. 

Dean surges forward. “Cas!”

“Go,” he hisses, his flame-lit face twisted in pain. “Dean – _run_!”

But he can’t, even though Luca’s tugging at his arm, he can’t leave. “Cas!” He yells, trying to reach him, to douse the flames, but there are other hands on him, pulling his arms behind his back, and he goes down hard on the concrete floor. He tastes blood, spits it out. “Cas!”

The last thing he sees before the lights go out is Cas in a crumpled heap on the floor, the flames rising like bars around him.

***

Sam is woken from restless sleep by an alarm.

It’s subtle, like everything about the Men of Letters, but it’s still obviously an alarm. He tries the door to his room, but it’s locked. “Hey!” He bangs on the door. “Hey, what’s going on?”

There’s no answer. And a couple minutes later, the alarm goes silent.

Sam retreats to his bed and waits. There’s nothing else he can do, but that’s okay. He’s waited before: for revenge, for justice, for his brother to come home. And one thing’s certain – he’s getting all of those things from the sonsofbitches who’re keeping him here and pretending that Dean is still dead.

Not too long after, the door opens. It’s Pax.

“Look, mate,” he says from the doorway, “you should know – they got your brother. Dean’s here.”

Sam’s off his bed in a second, crowding in on Pax and the open door. He’s got a good six inches on the guy; he figures he could take him. “Where is he?”

But Pax shakes his head. “I can’t. They won’t let me take you down—”

“Why not?”

“Security—”

“Screw that.” He grabs Pax by the shirt, pushing him out the door and up against the wall of the corridor outside. 

But Pax twists out of his grip with a hunter’s easy grace and dodges back a step. “Come on,” he says, “let’s not do this, mate.”

Jaw clenched, Sam raises his hands. “Okay.” He doesn’t want to fight the only guy who might be an ally. “Okay, but I need to see Dean.”

“I know.” Pax glances along the corridor and says, “Lady P’s gonna take you to see him. She’s on her way up.”

“Toni?”

“I told her you knew. Besides, your brother’s pissed off. She needs you to defuse him.”

“Does she know _you_ told me?” 

“Swears like a bloody trooper, that one, but I’m still in one piece,” he says with a wink. “Truth is, I think she fancies me.” 

“I wouldn’t count on it, Mr. Atherton.” Toni’s cultured voice precedes her down the corridor and Pax takes a step back.

“Lady P,” he says, leaning his shoulder against the wall, arms folded. “You look disgustingly pleased with yourself.”

He’s right, Sam thinks when Toni comes into view, there’s something self-satisfied in her expression, a heightened emotion. Her eyes look too bright, but hard and not happy. Sam’s instantly wary; he thinks she looks dangerous. 

“Sam,” she says, turning her attention to him. “As Paxton has told you, we’ve recovered your brother.”

“My brother who you let me think was _dead_? That one?”

She holds up a hand. “We didn’t know immediately that he’d survived—”

“You _knew_. You damn well knew, and you let me think—” He shakes his head, trying to control the emotion. “You _know_ what it’s like to lose a sister. How could you let me carry on thinking my brother was gone when you knew he was alive?”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and looks like she means it. “That— That wasn’t my choice, Sam. ”

Pax snort his disbelief. 

“It _wasn’t_ ,” she insists. 

“How about kidnapping him?” Sam says bitterly. “I bet that wasn’t your choice either?”

She just shakes her head. “Would it surprise you to learn that Dean came to us of his own accord?”

He doesn’t answer that, mostly because it doesn’t surprise him at all. “Let me guess. You told him you’d let me go?” 

“Hardly,” Toni says, and then turns to Pax. “Feel free to leave at any time, Mr. Atherton.”

“And miss the fireworks? Nah, think I’ll hang around.”

“Let me rephrase that,” she says. “Leave. I’m taking Sam to the holding area and you’re not invited.”

“And why’s that, M’Lady?”

“Because it’s not your concern.”

He spreads his hands. “You’re holding a hunter in a high security cell with restricted access,” he says. “As the hunting community’s representative to the Men of Letters, how is that _not_ my concern?”

“Because I’m telling you it’s not.” 

There’s a spike of tension and Pax is suddenly lean and deadly-looking. “This isn’t how we do things, Toni,” he says. “You know it isn’t.”

Her jaw is set, rigid. “Today it is.”

“The Old Men agree to this?”

“The _Old Men_ —” She stops herself, forces a chilly smile. “Take it to the Old Men if you want to, Pax. I know they always like to hear from you.” Then she grabs Sam by the shirt and tugs him into the corridor. “Your brother’s waiting. He won’t stop shouting until he knows you’re alive.”

Which, yeah, sounds like Dean. 

Sam goes with her, but looks over his shoulder as he leaves and sees Pax watching them go. He can’t decipher the expression on the other hunter’s face, but it makes the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck stand up.

At the end of the corridor there’s an elevator and they step inside. There are no buttons denoting floors, just a keypad, and Toni taps in a number. Sam thinks it’s 45892. He makes a mental note, just in case.

The elevator drops fast, which makes him wonder exactly how far underground this complex goes. And then he remembers Pax’s somber words about history having deep roots in this part of the world and that only intensifies his unease.

When they step outside, it’s into a sterile white corridor. The elevator is in a column around which several hallways radiate like spokes on a wheel. 

“This way,” Toni says, heading down one of the spokes.

It has the unmistakable feel of a jail and Sam’s hackles rise. “Why are you keeping him down here?” he says. “Why not put him in a room like me?”

She slides him a sideways look. “Because of the angel.”

And, crap. “Cas?”

“Yes. Your brother’s too close to it.”

Okay and he’s not going to pick her up on calling Cas ‘it’ because there are other questions here. “What do you mean too close?”

“His loyalty’s compromised, Sam.” She gives him a curious glance. “You must be aware of it?”

“Yeah. I mean Dean and Cas are close, I know that, but how does it compromise Dean’s loyalty? His loyalty to what?”

“To the fight, Sam. To the stand against the supernatural world.” 

“But Cas is on _our_ side!” he protests, almost laughing because surely she’s got it wrong. “Cas is one of the good guys.”

Toni comes to an abrupt halt. “Is that meant to be a joke?”

“You know it isn’t.”

“Castiel – one of the ‘good guys’? Do you have any idea how many people it’s murdered, Sam? Directly and indirectly?”

He shifts his shoulders, awkward under her hard gaze. “Look, if this is about the Purgatory thing—”

“The Purgatory _thing_?” she snaps. “Oh, you mean the ‘thing’ when he made himself God and went on a rampage, murdering anyone he didn’t like? The ‘thing’ when he brought the Leviathan back into the world?”

“He was just trying to—”

“Save Dean Winchester? Yes, I know.”

Sam grits his teeth. “Save _the_ _world_.” 

“Right. So how about when it closed the gates of Heaven and cast out thousands of homicidal angels to fight their wars among us?”

“No, that wasn’t him,” he says. “That was Metatron. Cas was tricked—”

“ _Hundreds_ of people died at their hands, Sam. All over the world.” She folds her arms like she’s trying to keep something inside, sets her jaw. “Or how about when it released Lucifer, let Satan walk the Earth in its vessel? Was it tricked then too?”

“He was just trying to—”

“It doesn’t matter!” She takes a breath, getting herself under control. “It doesn’t matter, Sam,” she says in a calmer voice. “Whether it’s incompetent or malign, that thing has done more damage to this world than any other creature we’ve _ever_ hunted. It has to be held to account.”

“Held to account?” Sam says. “Okay, well factor this into your accounting – without Cas, we could never have stopped the apocalypse. We’d all be dead by now. All of us. Including you –including your nephew, Edward.”

“Don’t you dare—” Toni’s face flushes red and she turns her head away for a moment.

“Listen…” he tries, but she talks right over him.

“Did you ever think, Sam, that without Castiel the apocalypse might never even have begun?”

That throws him. “What?”

She turns back to him, breathing anger into his face. “Well, wasn’t Castiel the angel sent to raise the Righteous Man from Hell? Did you never wonder why it took _so bloody long_? I mean, how long did it take Castiel to fetch you from Hell, Sam? From the Cage itself, from Lucifer’s very grasp? A couple of days? A week?”

“That was different.” 

“Yes,” she says, “it _was_ different. Because Castiel wasn’t waiting for _you_ to spill that first drop of blood in Hell...”

Sam shakes his head, takes a step back. “No, you’re wrong.”

“We all know the angels wanted the apocalypse. Why would Castiel do anything _but_ wait for the first seal to break before raising the Michael Sword from Hell?”

And that leaves Sam reeling, lost for words. 

Toni stares at him for a moment longer, as if challenging him to say more, to argue back. When he doesn’t she turns away, sharp on her heel, and pauses to collect herself. “Come on,” she says. “I can already hear your brother shouting.”

Rendered speechless, Sam can do nothing but follow. Eventually they reach the end and it opens up into a circular space, off of which are a half dozen barred cells. Two of them are in use: a man Sam doesn’t recognize is in one, and in the other…

“Dean!” 

“Sammy?” Dean’s off the narrow cot he’s lying on in a second and they almost collide at the bars of his cell. “Sam! Thank God.”

Sam grabs his hand through the bars, needing to feel him real and alive and solid. He can’t keep the tears back, even with Toni watching. “I thought—” He chokes on the words. “Dean, how are you alive?”

“Long story,” Dean says, his fingers clutching at Sam’s. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” Sam says, ignoring the bullet wound. “I’m fine. You?” He can see bruising on Dean’s face.

“Doesn’t matter.” His gaze darts past Sam to Toni and back, and he lowers his voice. “They’ve taken Cas,” he says. “He’s what they wanted. We were just the bait, Sam.”

“The bait?” That doesn’t make sense, and he turns in confusion to Toni who’s watching them from the center of the room. “If we were the bait, why banish Cas the moment we got back to the bunker?”

There’s a long beat before she says, “Well, at the time I believed Lucifer was still in residence. I didn’t like my odds against an archangel. Besides, I needed to lure the angel here – we have a special place for holding it.” 

Dean glowers, fingers tightening on the bar. “ _It_? His name’s Castiel. He’s not a fucking ‘it’, you limey sonofa—”

“I know its name,” Toni snaps. “Believe me, Dean, I know its name very well.”

“Yeah? Then you should—”

“Dean, cool it,” Sam says, grabbing hold of his wrist through the bars. “Just—Look, I know this sucks, but these people aren’t… Okay, they _are_ kinda uptight but they’re not bad guys. They’ll listen. They’re reasonable.” 

“Then why won’t they tell me where Cas is?”

Unsettled by his earlier conversation with Toni, but not wanting to worry Dean further, Sam just says, “We’ll figure it out, okay? There are hunters here too, it’s not just MoLs.”

“Mols?”

“Men of Letters. Point is, relax – we’ll figure it out. _I’ll_ figure it out.”

Dean looks away, something unusually raw in his expression. “They put some kind of whammy on him, Sam. They took him down and he was in pain, he was—” He stops, glances over at man in the other cell. “It was bad,” he finishes. “Whatever it was.”

“It was Enochian magic,” Toni offers. “What better way to fight angels than with their own weapons?”

“You don’t have to fight angels!” Dean snaps. “Well, not Cas anyway. Most of the others, I admit, are dicks. But Cas – he’s one of us.”

Toni’s smile is cold. “Yes,” she says, “that’s rather what I’m afraid of.”

“Tell me this,” says another voice. It’s accented – Italian, Sam thinks – and comes from the man in the other cell. “Tell me this, Antonia,” he says, “for how long has the London chapter of the Men of Letters been imprisoning fellow members of the order?”

“You’re the first, Luca,” she says, turning to him. “But, really, how can we possibly trust you when you’ve been fucking a fallen angel?”

Sam’s not sure if it’s _that_ word in _that_ accent, or the implication of it, that shocks him the most. He looks to Dean for an explanation and reads everything in the glower on his face, the way his eyes burn holes in the floor.

_And, well, holy crap. Cas?_

__The man – Luca – leans on the bars of his cell. “I want to see Aaban Khan,” he says. “Does he know I’m here?”

“Of course,” Toni says smoothly. “But Mr. Khan is a busy man, Luca. I’ll take you to him later. Tomorrow. Talking of which… Sam? It’s time to go.”

Dean says, “Go where?”

“It’s okay,” Sam says, “I’ll talk to them, Dean.” And by ‘them’ he means Pax; the hunter’s on his side, he knows he is. “I’ll sort this all out, okay? You have to trust me.”

It takes a moment, but then Dean nods, head dipped. Sam’s about to go when Dean grabs his hand again and looks up, looks him right in the eye, and says, “You have to find him. I trust you, man, but I don’t trust these fuckers with Cas. I’m scared they’re gonna— Just find him, okay?”

“Okay,” Sam says, closing his fingers over his brother’s hand. “I’ll find him. I will.”

“You gotta, Sam,” he says. “I can’t—” He doesn’t finish the sentence, biting down on the words.

But he doesn’t have to; Sam understands. “Hang tight,” he says, giving Dean’s hand a final squeeze before he lets go. “And don’t do anything stupid.”

***

Castiel is in pain. It’s not just physical, the burn against his wrists, it’s within his grace too. Much like the sigil that had first banished him from the bunker, much like the sigil that had rendered him unconscious when they’d tried to free Sam, the shackles on his wrists are eating into his grace. They disturb it, destabilize it, and render it useless. He’s flesh-bound and helpless. 

It’s very old, this magic. He recognizes it as something born of the first war in Heaven, designed to ensnare and hold the Morning Star and his acolytes. And now it’s being used to trap Castiel – Heaven’s most wanted – the irony isn’t lost on him.

He’s kneeling in the center of a dark room. There’s no ring of holy fire around him, but it’s not necessary; the shackles are digging into the bones of his vessel, anchoring him into the flesh and anchoring the flesh to the ground. It’s a binding spell designed to hold an archangel and Castiel is no archangel; his vessel and his grace are failing under the violence of the magic.

He’s been alone here for several hours. Outside it must be dark, the quiet hours of the night before dawn. Lonely hours, he remembers; he’s endured many nights alone through the small, silent hours both as an angel and a man. He will endure this night too, even if it is his last.

And the woman, his tormentor, _has_ intimated that it will be his last night and that final judgment is upon him. 

“You must be held to account,” she’d told him before she left, so angry he could see it burn in her eyes. “You must pay for what you’ve done.”

Castiel hadn’t argued; he’s been thinking the same thing for years. He’d only said, “Where’s Dean?”

She hadn’t told him, but the question had unsettled her. “How have you deceived him?” she’d asked, standing close enough that she could stare right into his eyes. “You’re a monster, Castiel. The things you’ve done… But he thinks you’re one of the ‘good guys’. They all do.”

“Perhaps I’m both?” he’d said. “I’ve done monstrous things, but maybe I’m one of the good guys too.”

“No,” she’d said, backing away. “No, that’s not right. They can’t just ignore what you’ve done, Castiel. That’s not good enough. It’s not _fair_.”

And that’s when he’d understood. “I’ve hurt you,” he’d said. He can’t think of another reason for the intensity of her pain, her anger. “I’ve hurt you or someone you love.” He’d hung his head, burned by shame. “I’m very sorry. If there’s anything—”

“No.” She’d backed up, shaking with fury. “No, you don’t get to apologize. You don’t get to be _forgiven_. You’re a monster, Castiel, and they have to see that. They have to understand _what you are_ before you die.”

And that’s when she’d left. And now he’s alone. Part of him thinks, _you’ve had this coming a long time, Castiel. The things you’ve done._

 __A larger part just thinks, _Dean_ …


	11. Chapter 11

Dean doesn’t sleep. How could he? But he stretches out on the cell's narrow cot with his hands behind his head and closes his eyes.

 _Rest is important_ , his dad had always said. _You go into a hunt too tired, it’ll be your last._

And this is a hunt, whatever Sam says about talking to these sonsofbitches. At some point they’re gonna let him out of this cell, and when they do he’s gonna be ready for them. 

He’s gonna find Cas.

His mind keeps turning over those final moments, when Cas had collapsed inside the ring of holy fire. If only Dean had been faster, if only he’d told Cas not to come at all…

 _I always come when you call_ , Cas had told him once. 

But Dean had refused to understand what that meant. He’d refused to see what a big fucking deal it was that Cas, an angel created to serve Heaven, had turned his back on it again and again just because Dean had asked it of him.

And now Cas is here, with these bastards doing God only knows what to him, because of Dean, because of the things Dean had asked him to do, the choices Dean had forced him to make.

“This is all my fucking fault,” he says.

He isn’t expecting an answer, but Luca says, “Yes, it is.”

Dean almost laughs; Luca doesn’t sugar his words. “You got any idea how we get out of here?” 

“If I speak to Khan tomorrow, he will see reason. This is…unusual behavior. Even for the English.”

“Hunting angels?”

“All of it,” Luca says. 

“Do you think—?” He swallows, tries again. “Do you think they’ll hurt him?” 

In the dark, Dean can hear Luca move, let out a sigh. “He’s an angel. He’s difficult to hurt.”

“Not so difficult,” he says and, although he means with angel blades and sigils, what he thinks about is the expression on Cas’s face when he’d turned him out of the bunker all those years ago, or when he’d told him _don’t make it awkward_ just a couple of weeks ago. He rubs a hand across his gritty eyes and is glad Luca can’t see him. “Thing about Cas,” he says in a rough voice, “is that he’s more human than he seems.” 

After a beat of silence, Luca says, “In what way?”

“He’s just got a lot of heart, man. You gotta be careful of that.”

“Ah. So you think I will break it, his heart?”

“No, I—” It’s stupid that there’s a lump in his throat, tears in his eyes. It’s stupid that he’d understood everything Cas meant to him only after he’d shot him down. He swallows, pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes. “You gotta be careful, is all I’m saying. He’ll give you everything, if you let him. He’ll go to the fucking mattresses for you, over and over. And he’ll _always_ … He’s the most loyal, stubborn sonofabitch I ever met.”

Luca hums, low in his throat. “Castiel has a great heart,” he says. “He loves completely, yes? With everything he is. It’s true; I’ve seen it.”

And of course he has, of course he’s fucking seen it, because Luca’s got what Dean threw away and he can’t _stand it_. He stares into the dark, curling and uncurling his hands into fists at his side. It’s not Luca’s fault, he reminds himself. It’s not. 

Another sigh drifts from Luca’s cell, thoughtful rather than resigned. “He is compelling, yes? The angel who fell to earth for the love of humanity. A creature of the divine contained within a mortal vessel, a human heart beating in his chest – a heart capable of loving and grieving and hurting. Such human things, and yet he is so much _more_ than human. To be loved by such a creature…? It is something terrifying, yes?”

Terrifying? Yes. Luca’s right; some part of his willful blindness had probably been born out of fear. Castiel, Angel of the Lord, all steel and fire, had left him awestruck. The thought of everything he’d sacrificed for Dean – _I_ _did it, all of it, for you_ – had been overwhelming. To inspire that kind of devotion in someone – some _thing_ – as breathtaking as Castiel had scared the shit out of him. Dean had known, all along, that he wasn’t worthy. And he’d been absolutely right.

“I screwed him up man,” he says, lets his voice break and doesn’t care. “I hurt him; I know I did, over and over. But he kept coming back, and I kept—” He tries to clear his throat; it doesn’t really work. “But now he’s got you, and that’s good. It is. Because he needs— Thing is, Cas looks like he’s fucking invincible, but it’s not true. There’s this side to him, this – I don’t know – innocence, I guess. He’s a freakin’ child, sometimes. He trusts people he shouldn’t, he believes in people he _really_ fucking shouldn’t. And they screw him up, they always screw him up. So, you know, you gotta watch out for him, okay? And you gotta do a better job of it than me.” He almost laughs, or maybe he’s crying. “God knows, you couldn’t do worse.”

Another eloquent silence drifts through the air between them before Luca says, “The problem is, Dean, I’m not the one he wants.”

“What?” It’s a rough whisper, somewhere between hope and doubt.

“Castiel raised you from Hell,” Luca says. “He defied God and Heaven for you. He _died_ for you.” He mutters something in Italian; it sounds like a curse. “Did you really think he’d stop loving you just because you told him you didn’t want it? Do you think he _could_?” 

“I—” He’s very still now, because Luca’s words make him sick almost at the same moment they ignite hope in his chest. “He told you about that? About… about what I said to him?”

“Of course. Castiel tells me everything.” There’s a pause before Luca adds, “The first time I met him, he was crushed by grief. He thought you dead, you see, and told me he would have died a thousand times if it would have spared you. I saw then, how much he loved you.”

Dean feels his throat close, bites down on the inside of his cheek to keep silent. He’s struck by a memory - it’s Cas, staring at the war room table, saying, _I thought you were dead_. He remembers his answer too: _get your shit together, man. Sam’s the priority._

He’s fevered with regret, nauseous with it.

“Later,” Luca carries on, “he told me that you didn’t want his love.”

 _I did_ , he wants to protest. _I did want it. I do. I **need** it._

“I told him you sounded like a stupid shit,” Luca says. “Now I’ve met you, I _know_ you’re a stupid shit.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, because he can’t deny it, not when it comes to Cas. “I am. I’m fucking poison to him.”

Luca snorts. “Perhaps, if you took your head out from your ass—”

There’s a noise outside, the sliding back of a door. Dean’s alert and on his feet in a moment, hand automatically reaching for a weapon that isn’t there. “You hear that?” he says in a low voice.

“Someone comes,” Luca says.

It’s too dark to see much, but then from the far end of the corridor light flares as a door opens and Dean hears footsteps echoing. Two sets – one female, in heels, the other slower and heavier.

He can’t make out the silhouetted shapes, but they’re coming his way. Instinctively, he backs away from the bars of his cell. This feels wrong, everything about it feels wrong. He looks around for something he could use as a weapon, but there’s nothing. The cot is fixed to the wall, no legs to break off, nothing to—

Lights flare on, incandescent white, blinding him. He yelps, throws his arm over his eyes. “Sonofa—”

“Dean!” It’s Cas. 

Thank God! Blinking, squinting against the glare, Dean’s back at the bars. But the smile drops from his face before it can even form; this is no rescue.

Cas collapses to his knees in the middle of the circular room, his arms bound behind his back. Toni stands with one hand on his shoulder and an angel blade gleaming silver in the other. 

Cas has lost his coat and his black shirt is stark against the white tiled walls, draining all the color but the blue of his eyes from his face. He looks exhausted, almost out of it, and struggling to focus. “Dean,” he says again, grimacing like he’s in pain. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. You?” It’s a dumb question; he can see he’s not.

“I’ve been better,” Cas admits, swaying like he’d fall if Toni’s hand wasn’t gripping his shoulder with fingers like talons.

Luca snaps, “Antonia, what is this? What are you doing?”

“I’m showing you the truth,” she says. “I’m opening your eyes to what this _thing_ is.”

Dean swallows. There’s something dark in her eyes, something he recognizes; he’s seen it in the mirror a hundred times, felt it beat bloody in his heart. It’s vengeance, or the need for it, and it makes his blood run cold. “Okay,” he says, lifting his hands from the bars of his cell. “Okay – Toni –

let’s just…let’s all just take a breath, okay?”

“Take a breath?” she snaps. “I’ve not even _started_.” She swings the blade in a low arc, lets the tip come to rest in the hollow of Cas’s throat. “Do you remember what happened five years ago, Castiel?”

In a quiet voice, he says, “Yes, if you mean—?” He swallows and Dean can see his throat move against the tip of the blade. “I assume you mean what I did five years ago, during the war with Raphael.”

“The war with Raphael,” Toni repeats, lowering the blade and moving away from him. “Yes. I mean what you did when you proclaimed yourself _God_ , Castiel.”

Cas drops his head, hair falling forward as he sways on his knees. “I’m ashamed of what I—”

“Ashamed? You’re _ashamed_ of it? Of murdering _all those people_?”

Dean says, “It wasn’t him, okay? It was the souls; they were messing with his mind.”

But Cas shakes his head, looks up again. His expression is unfocussed, his words slurring but clear enough to be understood. “Dean, don’t,” he says. “Don’t defend me. She’s right; all of it was my fault.” He turns to Toni, his heart in his eyes like fucking always. “Who was it I hurt?” he says. “Tell me.”

“Stop it!” Toni snaps. “Stop trying to— You can’t _apologize_. It’s not enough.”

“I know it’s not enough. Nothing is enough,” Cas says. “But what else can I do?”

“You can die,” Toni says in a voice like ice. “You can just fucking _die_.”

***

It’s a couple hours after Toni deposits Sam back in his room – cell – when the door opens again and Pax shows up. He looks tense, less of the joker than previously, and slips inside like he’s on a hunt. “Did you see your brother, okay?” he says, without preamble. “Was he alright?” 

“Yeah, he’s okay. Mostly he’s worried about Cas.”

Pax gives him a confused look. “Castiel? Why?”

That’s a complex question, so Sam just says, “They, uh, won’t tell Dean where they’re holding him.” Pax just stares blankly, so Sam prompts, “Do _you_ know where he is?”

Pax still looks blank. “The _angel_?”

“Yeah,” Sam says. “What’s hard to understand?”

Carefully, Pax closes the door. He doesn’t sit down, just hovers nervously and in a low voice says, “Why does Dean think we have Castiel?”

“Uh, because you do? Toni told me. She said you have a special place for—”

“Bloody _hell_ ,” Pax growls. “Toni told you she has the angel here?”

“Yeah. Dude, it’s all about Cas. Me and Dean? We were just the bait. I mean, kind of a convoluted plan, I guess, but—”

“That’s bollocks,” Pax says. “It’s not about Castiel – we don’t hunt _angels_. The Old Men wanted you and your brother brought in, that’s all. They wanted you on a short leash. And the only angel we ever— Oh fuck,” he says and pushes a hand through his hair. “Fucking _shit_ – Aylsham.”

“What?” Sam grabs his arm. “What’s Aylsham?”

Pax looks at his watch. “How long have you been back up here?”

“I don’t know, a couple hours…?”

“Shit.” He takes a breath. “Okay. We have to get down there. Now.”

“To the cells?”

“Yeah, but it’s restricted. Crap. I don’t have the code for the lift; they change it every day.”

Sam smiles, despite the way his heartrate’s accelerating. “Actually, I think I know it,” he says. “I saw Toni type it in earlier.”

“Nice one,” Pax says and then, after a pause, he reaches under his jacket and pulls out a knife. Flipping it handle first, he offers it to Sam. “You might need this, mate.”

Swallowing down a knot of fear, Sam nods. “Thanks.”

And then they’re heading out the door, and running for the elevator at the end of the corridor. 

***

“No!” Dean wraps his hands around the bars and yanks, as if he could pull the door free by brute force. “No, don’t. Please, God, don’t.”

“It’s a _monster_!” Toni snarls, stalking toward his cell. “You worship it like it’s some kind of… of holy thing. But it’s not. It’s one of the things we hunt, Dean.” 

And then she’s reaching into her pocket and pulling out a photograph, holding it up for him to see. It’s dog-eared, like she’s been carrying it around for years, and shows a man and a woman smiling down at a chubby baby perched on the woman’s lap. Dean feels sick; he knows what’s coming. He wets his lips, glances at Cas. He’s sinking in on himself, hunched forward, shoulders rising and falling like he’s breathing hard. Shit. Dean makes himself look away, look back at Toni, makes himself say, “Who are they?”

“Who _were_ they, you mean,” she says. “That’s Eleanor and James, my sister and her husband. And that’s their baby, Edward.”

Turning away, she takes two steps and shoves the picture at Cas. “Do you recognize them, _angel_?”

He looks up, squints and frowns at the picture, shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“You don’t _remember_ them?” She sounds devastated.

“I’m sorry,” he says in a broken voice. “Did I… Did I hurt them?”

There’s a breathless silence, and then Toni says, “You killed them. I watched you do it.” Her voice is shaking, the picture trembling in her hand. “It was in Aylsham Parish Church. You’d just murdered the vicar – hypocrisy, you said – but we had you trapped. Well, we thought we did. We had you inside a ring of holy fire, and Eleanor— But you were too strong, you just— With your fingers… You just clicked your fingers, and she—” Toni cuts herself off. The breath she sucks in is harsh and wet in her throat. 

Cas sags forward, Dean can’t see his face anymore. “I’m so sorry,” he says in a devastated whisper. Dean can barely hear it and he aches to go to him, to pull him up. Hold him up. 

“Cas,” he says, but it comes out as little more than a breath.

“James went for you then,” Toni carries on. “He was out of his mind. And you did the same to him, you just... And I—” She shudders in another breath. “There wasn’t even anything left to bury.”

The bars of the cage are digging into the flesh of Dean’s hands; he’s holding them so tight. “Look, it wasn’t him,” he tries again, voice tight and cracking with fear. “That’s not who he is… It’s not.”

“I was _there_!” Toni whirls on him, and now he can see the tears on her face and the cold, bitter anger in the pits of her eyes. “How can you still defend it?” She holds up the angel blade. “You’re a hunter, Dean Winchester! You should want to put this in its _heart_ ; it’s a monster!”

“He’s my _friend_.”

“Your friend?” Her jaw clenches with fury. “Then you’re a monster too. And maybe I’ll kill you as well, once you’ve watched this _thing_ die.”

“No!” He reaches for her, but she’s too far away. “Toni, don’t! Listen, you’ve got it wrong. Please! Please, I’m begging you. Don’t.”

But she’s stalking around behind Cas now, deaf to Dean, and with one hand grabs a fistful of his hair, hauling his head back, baring his throat to her blade. “Any last words, _angel_?”

“Cas!” Dean throws himself bodily against the bars. “Cas!”

Dimly through the blood pounding in his ears he can hear Luca cursing in a long streak of furious Italian. But it’s like the world has narrowed down to one thing – to Cas. To the way his throat is working, chest rising and falling with rapid, frightened breaths. To the silver gleam of the angel blade against his throat, the thin strip of scarlet that blooms along its length. And to the way Cas fixes his gaze on Dean, his eyes wide and aching with everything that remains unsaid between them.

“NO!” Dean’s throat is raw as he reaches through the bars, choking and desperate. “Cas! CAS!”

And then, like a miracle, Sam is there. _Sam is there._

 __“Toni, stop!” he barks. He’s got a knife in one hand, the other held out in warning. And there’s another man with him, holding a gun as he circles around behind Toni and Cas. Dean’s not sure she’s seen him.

“Don’t do this, Toni,” Sam says.

Her fist clenches deeper into Cas’s hair, yanks his head back harder. “You don’t understand.” 

“I do,” Sam says, keeping the knife raised but his voice calm. “Toni, I do, I get it. I know what happened – Pax told me.”

Her nostrils flare. “He had no right.”

“Maybe not, but he did. I know it was Cas who killed your sister. And I get it, okay? I get that you want revenge. But this won’t help; it’ll just make things worse.” 

“I promised them,” she says. “I stood in that church and I swore I would end the _thing_ that had killed him.”

“And that thing’s gone, Toni. It has. Cas— He got rid of it himself, and he paid a price. He lost _everything_ , for a long time.”

“ _I_ lost everything!” she shouts. “My sister was _everything_ to me.”

“I _know_!” he snaps. Then, quieter. “I know, okay. I know what it’s like to lose my brother. But what about Edward? What will happen to him if you do this? He’s already lost one mother and I know – I _know_ – what that’s like too, okay? I know how it messes you up. Don’t do it to him again.”

“I’m doing this _for_ Edward,” she says. “This is for him as much as me.”

“Is it?” Sam says and he’s edging closer now, lowering his knife a little. “You’re his mom now, Toni. He needs you. He needs you with him more than he needs vengeance.”

“I _swore_ ,” she says, but the blade has fallen from Cas’s throat, her hand loosening its grip in his hair. He slumps forward, barely looks conscious, swaying on his knees. “I swore to…” She chokes on a sob. “She was my _sister_.”

“I get it,” Sam says, inching closer still. “But nothing can bring her back, Toni. Killing Cas won’t change anything. All it’ll do is screw things up worse for you and Edward – and that’s not what Eleanor would have wanted, is it?”

“I can’t— I _hate_ him.”

“I know,” Sam says. “But you gotta let it go.”

She shakes her head and suddenly presses a hand to her mouth, stifling a gasp, a sob. The angel blade falls to the floor with a metallic clang, bouncing twice. And then she’s burying her face in her hands and Sam is pulling her into a hug, moving her away from Cas who, released, collapses.

The other guy, the one with the gun, holsters his weapon and crouches next to Cas. He puts a hand to his throat, feeling for a pulse. Dean can’t breathe, just watches until the guy sits back on his heels and says, “Toni, open the cells.”

With Sam still holding her, she fumbles in her pocket and pulls out something electronic. She presses it and the cell doors release. Dean almost falls out, stumbling to his knees in front of Cas.

“Hey,” he says, hauling him upright. “Cas…” He’s heavy and limp, his arms still tied behind his back. But Dean gets his hands either side of his face, tapping his cheek. “C’mon, man, snap out of it.”

“It’s the cuffs,” Luca says, dropping to crouch behind Cas, examining the shackles holding him. “They’re warded.” He turns to the other guy. “Pax, do you have the key?”

“Christ, Toni,” Pax says as he crouches next to Luca, “the Lucifer Irons? How did you even get them out of the Repository?”

“Don’t matter,” Dean says. “Just get the damn things off him.”

“Wait a sec,” Pax says and he and Luca start talking, heads bent together.

Dean’s not listening, too preoccupied with holding Cas up while Luca and Pax fiddle with the cuffs. But Cas is a deadweight in his arms and Dean has to brace him against his chest just to keep him upright, has to let Cas’s head rest heavy on his shoulder. He puts a hand to the back of his neck to keep his head from lolling and grits his teeth, resisting the urge to pull him closer. 

Suddenly Pax says “Bob’s your uncle!” and Cas is free. 

He slumps forward and for a moment Dean has him entirely in his arms. “I got you,” he says, murmurs it against his hair where no one else can hear. “I got you, buddy.” And then he’s just holding him, feeling Cas’s shallow breaths against his neck, so grateful to Sam for saving him that he could fucking weep. His hand clenches into Cas’s hair, hugging him close, just for a moment, it’s all just for a moment, because then he’s letting go, all too aware of Luca watching him. “You should…” Dean says, letting Luca move in to take his place, making himself pull back. “I’ll, um…” He gets to his feet, almost breaking with the effort of letting go as he stands up and takes a reluctant step back.

“Well,” the guy called Pax tells him cheerfully, “over here we’d call this is a right fucking balls-up.”


	12. Chapter 12

Two days after it all went down, Sam finds himself sitting on a bench looking out over the Thames. It’s evening and the early lights of the city are reflecting in the water, the giant Ferris wheel – the London Eye – is revolving across the river, lit up blue, and he can hear distant music, tinny through speakers, over the constant roar of traffic.

Like all such cities, London never sleeps. And Sam thinks he’d be more fascinated by its energy if it wasn’t for the ball of nervous tension knotted up in the pit of his stomach. It’s been there since Dean first told him the incredible news about their mom, and now their meeting is imminent he actually feels kind of nauseous.

Next to him, Dean’s bouncing his knee in nervous anticipation. He’s been acting weird since Sam rescued him, distracted a lot of the time. When Sam asked about it, he’d just waved it off – “Dude, it’s been a crazy fucking year.”

And Sam can’t argue with that, he supposes. The whole thing with Amara must have taken its toll, he doesn’t underestimate that, and now their mom’s back from the dead... He figures Dean’s entitled to some pensive deep thinking.

“What time did she say she’d be here?” Sam says, checking his watch again.

“Eight, I told you.” 

“It’s ten ‘til.”

“Okay, so ten minutes.” Dean turns to look at him with an affectionate smile. “She’ll be here, man.”

“I still can’t believe it.”

“It’s pretty unbelievable.”

Sam lets out a breath, huddles deeper into his coat. “You think she’ll go in and see them?”

“The Men of Letters?” Dean sniffs, his disapproval evident. “I hope not.”

Sam’s silent for a moment, then says, “I, uh, I actually hope she will.”

“What?”

“Dean, she’s come back from the dead. Don’t you think that’s something that maybe needs some support?”

Dean throws him a disparaging look. “Okay, first: ‘support’? Second, they nearly fucking _killed_ Cas, man.”

“That was… C’mon, that wasn’t their _policy_.”

“No, it was just one of their psychos.”

“Dean—”

“What? I’m calling it like it is.”

“Okay – first,” he says, mimicking Dean’s lecturing tone, “it’s offensive to say ‘psycho’, and second, Toni wasn’t doing anything either of us wouldn’t haven’t done in the same situation. Hell, we’ve done worse.”

Dean snorts, but doesn’t argue. Probably because he knows it’s true. 

“Look,” Sam says, “they’ve apologized for what happened.”

“Oh, well, that’s okay then.”

Sam leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees. “Maybe they’re a little heavy handed in their methods,” he says, “but Pax says they’re changing. And the resources they have here, Dean…” He can’t even begin to imagine what’s contained in those vast archives. “Plus, it would be pretty awesome to hang out with Pax and some other hunters for a while, you know? See how they do things in other places.”

Dean shifts where he’s sitting, stares at Sam. “Dude, what the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about, maybe, staying here for a while. Seeing what I can learn from them, seeing if maybe we can rebuild a few bridges. It can’t hurt to have some alliances, right? I mean, next time the shit hits the fan, it would be nice if it wasn’t just you and me dealing with it.”

“You, me and Cas,” Dean says, turning back to the river. But then he dips his head, lets out a heavy sigh and stares at the space between his feet.

Sam studies him – the hunched shoulders, the hands knitted together – and says, “It’s not like I won’t come back, you know, to the bunker.” _To you_ , he adds silently; Dean knows what he means. “It’s just, this is such an incredible opportunity, Dean. We don’t have to be alone in this anymore. Think about it.”

Dean nods, but doesn’t lift his head. “I get it,” he says. “I do. And you should stay for a while, if you like. God knows, the bunker ain’t safe anymore.”

“That’s something else I was thinking about,” Sam adds with enthusiasm. “The Men of Letters built the bunker, so they have to know how we can fix all the wards Amara burned out, and how we can protect it from Lucifer again.” He swallows the taste of sulphur that name brings to his lips and, more quietly, says, “’Cause you know he’s probably still out there, right?”

“Yeah,” Dean says with a nod. “And you’re still his favorite prom dress.”

He snorts at that, shakes his head. “I guess Cas should be careful too, though…”

“He’d better be.”

There’s something in the heavy way Dean says that, a kind of leaden resignation, that makes Sam look over at him again. Dean’s been freaking out over Cas for months, more concerned about Cas than defeating Amara half the time… Sam chooses his next words with care. “So, talking of Cas…” he says and sees Dean tense, like he’s bracing himself. “This Luca Moretti guy seems like a big deal among the MoLs.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Dean doesn’t look up.

“And he and Cas are, what…?” He’s waiting for Dean to fill in the blank, but when he doesn’t, Sam ends with, “Lovers?”

Dean grimaces. “I guess.”

“Huh.” Sam’s still kind of amazed by the revelation. “I never would’ve thought Cas—”

“What?” Dean says sharply. “Bats for the other side?”

Sam takes a moment to process Dean’s defensive response before he says, “Well, if you want to talk in hackneyed euphemisms, Dean, I guess I always thought Cas batted for _your_ side.”

And that takes the wind out of Dean’s sails and his head drops forward, one hand rubbing over his eyes. “Yeah, well,” he says, which doesn’t tell Sam a whole lot.

“Look, maybe you should talk—”

“Dean?” 

The woman’s voice comes from behind them, and Sam turns with a start. It’s her; he knows her immediately, even in the blue hoodie and jeans. And he just stares like a dork. 

“Mom,” Dean says, getting to his feet and walking around the bench to hug her. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” And then her eyes turn to Sam and her hand goes to her mouth. “Sammy?”

He nods, feels his eyes filling as he stands up on shaky legs. “Hey, Mom,” he says.

For the longest time they just look at each other, and then she opens her arms and says, “Come here.” He does and she wraps him in the tightest hug and reaches up to stroke his hair as she whispers, “Sammy, my baby. My sweet boy.”

And then Dean’s hugging them both and everyone’s crying. And, for a while, Sam just lets everything be perfect.

***

Lady Antonia Bevell is a sixth generation Woman of Letters, Castiel has learned. She comes from a very distinguished family, descending from Robert de Beville, who arrived in England in 1066 alongside William of Normandy. Their family motto is “The Future is Inscrutable.” It seems apt, for her line of work.

He also now knows that he murdered her sister and her sister’s husband, orphaning their infant son and leaving him to be raised by his grieving aunt. It’s a truth that has haunted him since he woke alone on a narrow bed in one of the Men of Letters’ guest rooms, the memory of the ordeal all too fresh in his recovering mind.

The Lucifer Irons had done a great deal of damage to the integrity of both his grace and his vessel, but two days on he’s recovered enough to be able to leave the Pyx Complex. Only he doesn’t want to go until he’s spoken to Antonia Bevell.

“Is this a good idea?” Luca says to him. He’s sitting next to Castiel on the bench outside the room where Antonia has been held since, what the Men of Letters are calling, ‘the incident’. Luca’s talking quietly, in Italian, like he does when they’re alone. “What do you think it will achieve?”

“I don’t know,” Castiel says. He’s grateful for Luca’s presence, for his company here, because he’s not looking forward to facing Antonia’s pain. But he can’t help wishing it was Dean sitting next to him; Dean would know why Castiel has to do this, good idea or not. And that thought makes him feel ungrateful, so he puts a hand on Luca’s leg and says, “Thank you for staying.”

“ _Prego_ ,” Luca says with a smile.

When the door opens to let them in, Castiel indicates for Luca to stay behind and heads inside alone.

Antonia is standing near the window, looking pale and drawn. With her is the man Castiel now knows as Aaban Khan, Chairman of the London Chapter of the Men of Letters. He steps forward and says, “Castiel.”

“Hello,” Castiel says. 

“Will you take a seat?” There’s a small table and a couple of chairs.

Castiel shakes his head. “No, thank you. I won’t be long.” He turns his gaze to Antonia and says, “Thank you for seeing me.”

She’s not looking at him, has her arms wrapped around her belly as if she’s holding herself together. He’s seen humans do this a lot, when they’re in pain. He remembers doing it himself, as a human, on particularly long nights when he felt very alone. He swallows. “I only want to say, again, how sorry I am for what happ—” He stops, forces himself to unvarnished honestly. “For what I did to your family. I know that doesn’t change anything, and that there’s nothing I can do that will, but I want you to know that, if I had the power, I would make it so that I never started on the path that ended with the death of your sister and her husband.” He thinks for a moment of everything he destroyed, and says, “I broke so much, so many irreparable things.” So much trust, never to be recovered. “I’ve existed since the start of creation, Antonia, and of all the things I’ve done in my existence, walking that path is the thing I most regret. I lost— Well, it doesn’t matter what I lost. But I want you to know that if there’s ever anything I can do for you, or for your sister’s child – your son, now, I suppose – then I’ll do it. Just call. Pray and I’ll hear you.”

She’s silent and Castiel isn’t surprised. He knew that his apology could never be enough, but—

“What did you lose?” Antonia looks away from the window. “You said you lost something.”

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t compare—”

“What was it?” she says. “What can something like _you_ lose? Power? Your position in Heaven? What?”

His lips have gone dry, his mouth and throat too. This is a situation, he thinks, where Dean would obfuscate and Sam would open up his heart and lay it on the table. He’s pretty sure Sam’s approach is right; it certainly feels painful enough to be right, to be a penance. So he makes himself say it, out loud like a confession. “I lost the trust and respect of—” He clears his throat, the pain of it as fresh as ever because it’s never really gone away, because his betrayal has colored everything that came after. “I lost the trust and respect of the man I loved more than… I have no words to express how much I loved him – _love_ him – and I lost his trust and his respect. Forever, I believe. He’s forgiven me, but I don’t think he’s ever trusted me since, not completely. And that’s a loss I’ll carry forever.”

She stares at him. “I didn’t think angels could feel love? Other than for God.”

“That’s true,” he says, “but I guess I’m not much of an angel anymore.”

“So you’re human?”

“I don’t know. Angel, human – both and neither, I guess.”

“It sounds lonely.”

He nods. “Yes.”

Taking a breath, she looks away and says, “What I did to you—? It was wrong. I know that.”

“I understand why you did it,” he offers. “I don’t blame you.”

Sniffing, she wipes under her eyes. “It was easier when I hated you.”

“I’ll stay out of your way,” he promises. “You’ll never see me again unless you ask for my help. I—”

“Sam says you’re a good friend,” she says, turning back from the window. Her eyes are bright with tears, but some of the tension has left her. “And I think he’s going to stay here for a while.” She glances at Aaban Khan, who nods his agreement. “Maybe, sometime, you and I could meet again?”

Castiel smiles; it’s far more than he was ever expecting. “I’d like that very much, Antonia. I’d—” His voice cracks and he has to clear his throat. “ _Thank you_.”

Her tentative forgiveness lifts a great shadow from his shoulders. It’s only one voice out of all the thousands he’s hurt, but it’s more than he deserves and it’s enough – enough to let him leave this place in peace.

When he returns to where Luca’s waiting, he puts a hand on his shoulder and says, “Let me take you home.”

Luca raises his eyes to his and says, “What about Dean?”

What _about_ Dean? “He’ll call when he needs me.”

Luca shakes his head, but pushes to his feet and pulls out his cigarettes. “ _Allora_ ,” he sighs, “take me somewhere I can smoke, Castiel.”

***

Turns out, his mom is way more like Sam than she is like Dean. And, after a little reluctance, she’s wandering the archives of the Men of Letters with a kind of guilty fascination that matches Sam’s wide-eyed amazement.

Dean watches them bond with an odd mixture of affection and melancholy. As much as it’s amazing to have his mom back, he’s not blind to how things are already changing. His whole life, it’s been his job to look out for Sammy. It’s been him and his brother against the world, the inseparable team. But now there’s Mary and it’s literally her job to look after Sam, which makes Dean… Well, superfluous. Everything is changing, falling apart – in a good way, but falling apart nonetheless. All the old realities are shifting.

Sam has his mom to look after him. He has a whole new world opening up – both in terms of the job, and in terms of the literal fucking world. He’s bunking down in the safe house with their mom, talking about restarting the US branch of the Men of Letters for real – supporting and uniting all the disparate hunters, providing research and backup. His eyes are full of it, bright as stars, this future he’s dreaming – and their mom’s no less excited.

“I thought I could escape the life, Dean,” she tells him one night, a couple days after she agrees to stay. They’re sitting in the living room of the safe house, sharing one of the leather sofas. Mary’s nursing a cup of some gross herbal tea Sam bought, Dean has a beer. “But the truth is,” she says, “you can’t. And if I hadn’t tried for ‘normal’…”

“Mom,” he objects.

“No, it’s true,” she says. “The last thing I wanted for my boys was for you to become hunters, but you did anyway. And if I’d been there, well, maybe it would’ve gone easier on all of us. But I wasn’t there because I thought I could get out – I thought if I just looked away it would all just disappear. But I was stupid. People like us? We can’t unknow what we know, Dean. And, because we know it, we’ve got a duty to do something about it. And now – with all of this behind us? Well, maybe we can make a difference? Maybe we can make it better for the hunters back home, so their kids don’t have to grow up on the road.”

Dean nods because, as much as the last thing he wants to do is hang out in a bunch of dusty archives in London, he gets why Sam and his mom are so into it. “The bad guys won’t know what hit ’em,” he says. “And while you’re at it, maybe you can pull the sticks out of these guys’ asses too?”

“Dean,” she scolds, without much heat.

He huffs a laugh and sinks back into the sofa. The smile slips from his face pretty fast, though, just like always. He feels adrift and he’s not stupid enough to think it’s only – or even mostly – because of Sam’s and his mom’s new friends, or the backlash from Amara and God’s happy ever after. No, he knows it’s the continuing fallout from his mind-altering revelation about the nature of his feelings for Cas.

And his utter indecision about what to do next.

Cas, of course, has disappeared back to Naples with Luca. As usual, without so much as a wave goodbye. Dean only knows where he’s gone because Pax had told him with a crude wink and some bizarre comment about ‘slap and tickle’ which Dean chose not to translate. But he can’t forget his conversation with Luca – the things he said about Cas, about what Cas feels for him. _Still_ feels for him. He just doesn’t know what to do about it, because he’s screwed things up so badly already he doesn’t even know whether he’s got the right to try and change it now. How would that even work?

_Hey, Cas, how you doing? Great. By the way, you know when I told you I loved you like a brother? Well, not so much..._

__That would be ridiculous. And, besides, Cas is in freakin’ Naples, with his sophisticated Italian boyfriend and his stupid cigarettes and sexy accent. Which means Dean would have to pray to him to get his attention, and that’s just fucking lame and humiliating. And, besides, it just doesn’t feel like _enough_. Cas laid his heart on a damn plate for him, and he threw it back. If he’s gonna do anything, it’s gotta be better than, _Cas, got your ears on?_

“Hey,” his mom says, nudging him with her toe, “penny for ’em?”

“Hmm? Nah, it’s nothing.”

Her eyes narrow. “No it’s not,” she says in a tone he imagines mothers use when they can see through their sons’ transparent lies. But, then again, how would he know? “Dean,” she says, shifting so she’s sitting cross legged and leaning toward him with a sober expression, “can I ask you something serious?”

“Uh, you can _ask_ ,” he says with a faux laugh.

“Okay,” she agrees, “you don’t have to answer. That’s fair.” She pauses, considering her words, and then says, “You and Castiel…”

Shit. He looks down at his hands, can’t hold her gaze. 

“Do you have a thing for him?”

“Mom…” He can feel his face burning, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. 

“It’s just that, if you did, it would be kinda dumb to let him go off with Luca like that.”

He bites back the instinctive denial and deflection that come so swiftly to mind. He figures Cas deserves better than that. “It’s complicated,” he says instead – the world’s biggest cliché. 

Luckily his mom’s from 1983 and hasn’t heard it yet. “What’s complicated?” 

“A lot,” he says, looking up. “There’s a lot of crap gone down between us, Mom. Serious crap. I dunno— Luca might be better for him than me.”

She nods. “I get it,” she says. “I kinda felt like that about John for a while – afraid of dragging him into all this business, afraid I’d screw up his life. And I guess I was right in a way, but… Even with what happened, I don’t regret being with him. Some people are meant to be together.”

Dean looks back down at his hands. “Cas ain’t even people.”

“He seems to be where it counts.” 

When he looks up at her, eyebrows raised, she slaps his knee and says, “I meant his _heart_ , Dean.”

He smiles. “Right, yeah. He’s all freakin’ heart.”

“So…” she says, taking another sip of her tea. 

“So?”

“Are you just gonna stay here and mope, or are you gonna go do something about it?”

He lets out a breath. “It’s not that easy…”

“Why not?”

“Well…” He tries to think up a couple good reasons that don’t involve, _because I’m shit scared_. “I gotta sort out the bunker – the warding’s shot to hell. And Sam might need some help here if things go sour, and—”

“Whoa,” his mom says. “Back up buster. First, we already discussed this – Sam and I are going to research how to fix the bunker’s warding. So there’s nothing you can do about that right now. Second, _I’ve_ got Sam’s back here, Dean. I’m his mom and I’m a hunter. So…stand down, soldier. Take a vacation.”

He laughs at that. “Right.”

“I mean it,” she says. “Why not? When did you last take a vacation?” He looks at her for a beat too long to hide the truth, and then winces as her face crumples. “Oh Dean…” 

The truth is he’s never really thought about it. Not that they ever had time or money or even the will – it’s always been lurching from one hunt to the next, from one disaster to the next. But he realizes, with a sudden stark clarity, that for the first time in years – certainly for the first time since he’s known Cas – there’s no disaster looming over his shoulder, no imminent threat, no oppressive sense of grief. And he’s got something he’s never had in his life before – time. He’s got time and the freedom to do something utterly self-centered, something that doesn’t involve hunting things or saving people. Something that’s just for him… The thought leaves him dumbstruck, staring down at his hands. 

Into the silence, Mary says, “I, uh, I hear Naples is nice this time of year.”

But that’s insane. That’s— “It’s in Italy!”

His mom hums around the lip of her mug and says, “What, they don’t have airplanes in the twenty-first century?”

Airplanes. 

It hits him like the proverbial lightning bolt and, for a moment, he just sits very still thinking, _Are you fucking nuts_? And yeah, he probably is, but what the hell? It’s not the dumbest thing he’s ever done. It won’t end the world, or get anyone killed. The only person it’ll screw over is himself, and he’s already so screwed it doesn’t even matter. 

Getting up, he heads out the room.

“Dean?” his mom calls after him.

Ignoring her, he goes into the kitchen, opens the trash can and starts rummaging. He grimaces; it stinks.

“Dean?” his mom says from the kitchen doorway. “What on earth…?”

Bingo! He pulls out the folded pizza box from a couple nights back, shaking off a little old Chinese food. “Got it,” he says with a grin that feels kinda wild. Kinda insane. His heart’s racing, stomach rollercoastering at the thought of what he’s planning. Is he really gonna do this?

His mom’s frowning. “You’ve got what?”

“The grand gesture.”

“Pizza?”

“Kinda,” he says, unfolding the box and tearing off the part with the address. “Call Sam will you? I’m gonna need a freakin’ passport. And, God help me, a plane ticket.”

His mom smiles. “You’re going to Naples?”

“Thing is,” he says, looking down at the address ( _Pizzeria I Decumani Via dei Tribunali, 58, 80138 Napoli_ – what the hell does that even mean? _)_ “Thing is, Mom, Cas always comes when I call.”

She frowns, cocks her head like she’s trying to understand.

“This time, I’m going to him,” he says with a smile, almost a laugh. “Shit. I’m gonna do it, Mom. I’m gonna actually do it.”

Her smile is like the sun coming out. “Of course you are, Dean,” she says.


	13. Chapter 13

It’s five days after his return to Naples when Castiel makes his way back to _Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco_. He’s looking for Luca; he wants to return the clothes he borrowed. Among other things.

The woman on the door tells him the church is closed to visitors, so he politely thanks her, turns the corner and stretches his wings momentarily. And then he’s inside the crypt where he first landed when Antonia had banished him from the bunker.

It feels like a long time ago, now. Strange, the passage of time to an angel. In one sense, he is present in all times. In another, these human years are long and slow and burdensome. Not that he’d change them, of course. He’s learned more, become more (and less) over the past eight human years than in all the millennia before. Part of God’s genius, he supposes. Or maybe just humanity’s.

He finds Luca where he expected, studying in the crypt that also serves as the Men of Letter’s repository of all things arcane. The visitors don’t see the half of it, of course. When Castiel appears, Luca looks up and their gaze meets and holds for a few moments. Castiel thinks Luca already knows why he’s here. Unlike Dean, he’s very perceptive like that – and also very open. 

“ _Ciao, bello_ ,” he says, his customary greeting, as he closes the book he’s reading.

“ _Buon pomeriggio_ ,” Castiel says. He thinks it’s more appropriate to be formal.

Luca raises an eyebrow, reaches for his cigarettes, but doesn’t light one up. Even he wouldn’t smoke somewhere like this. Instead, he tips one out, turns it over in his fingers, and says, “You have some new clothes. I like them.”

Pleased, Castiel looks down at himself. He likes them too, mostly because he chose them himself. They’re the first clothes he’s ever owned that he chose to wear as an expression of himself. It feels significant. “The woman who sold me the jacket said it was flattering.”

Luca smiles and gets to his feet. “She wasn’t lying,” he says, and steps forward to run his hand down the leather sleeve. “You look— You look like yourself, Castiel. I like it.”

“I think I feel like myself,” he says, and holds out the bag of clothes he borrowed. “Which is why I’m returning these.”

Luca takes them. “Okay.” He looks at Castiel a moment longer and then says, “Also…?”

And this is where Castiel wishes he was more practiced in these human things. He decides to go for honesty; he’s discovered it’s often disarming even when he gets things wrong. “Our ‘relationship’ has taught me a lot, Luca. I’ve valued it greatly. But I think, for me, it’s time to end it. I mean the sexual part of it,” he adds, to clarify. “I hope we’re able to remain friends, of course.”

Luca smiles, looks away and puts his unlit cigarette in his mouth. “Nicely done, _angelo_ ,” he says, and Castiel doesn’t think he’s joking.

“Thank you,” he says, which earns another smile. “I hope you’re not…hurt?” He hopes _that’s_ not presumptuous.

“Hurt? No,” Luca lifts a hand to cuff his chin. “You are… I think you are different, yes? From when we first met and you were all hunched into that nasty old raincoat.”

Castiel smiles at the image he’s painting. “It’s hard to explain,” he says, but gives it a shot anyway. “For so long I saw myself only through Dean’s eyes. In my mind, my worth was determined by the value Dean placed on me…” He feels a little self-conscious now, but carries on. “Being with you, like we have been, has given me a new perspective on myself. That is – I realize that just because Dean doesn’t want me, it doesn’t mean I’m not wanted at all.”

Luca snorts. “Dean Winchester doesn’t know what he wants.”

Castiel is fairly certain that Dean knows _exactly_ what he wants, but doesn’t intend to argue, so changes the subject. “Antonia Bevell had a similar effect on me, in fact.”

Luca lifts an eyebrow. “You sleep with her too?”

“Of course not, but she forgave me for what I did to her family. And I realized that, even if Dean can’t forgive me for the things I’ve done, other people can.”

“Hmmm,” Luca says, with a sage nod. “And so perhaps you can too?”

“Yes,” Castiel says. “Perhaps.”

Luca lets his eyes travel down to Castiel’s new boots and up again to his face, smiling a regretful smile around his cigarette. “I will miss you in my bed, _bello_ , but I think this is good. You’re an angel reborn, yes?”

“Well, not quite, but I do feel…” He flexes his wings, snuffs a few candles, and sees Luca’s eyes widen. It makes Castiel smile, feel something like pride or pleasure. “I don’t really know what I am anymore, Luca, but whatever I am I feel more like myself. Thanks to you.”

“ _Prego_ ,” Luca says with a wink. “And so, what now? Where do you go?”

He shakes his head. “I really don’t know.”

“Back to Dean?” 

“No. Not unless he needs me.” And it’s no lie, even though he can’t deny his instinct is still – will always be – to return to Dean. “I think I need to learn not to put him at the heart of everything.”

Luca sighs, presses a hand to Castiel’s face and kisses his cheek. “ _Addio_ , Castiel. I hope—” He shakes his head. “When you see Dean Winchester, tell him from me he’s a _coglione_ , yes?”

“I’ll tell him,” Castiel promises with a smile. “But luckily he won’t understand the Italian.”

Luca smiles too, pulls him into a tight hug and then lets him go. “Now I have work to do, _angelo_. You know the way out?”

“Of course,” he says, and as Luca turns back to his books Castiel opens his wings and is gone.

 

He lands outside the church in the busy street of _Via dei Tribunali_ , with all its noise and bustle. So very human. There had been a time, a mere blink of an eye, when he’d watched all this with indifference – observing, but not really understanding. A thousand generations of humans living and dying on this piece of land and all of them passing unremarked upon through Castiel’s undiscerning sight. But now, when he starts to walk along the busy streets, he doesn’t just see humanity – he sees people.

He sees a mother wiping ice cream from her child’s face. He sees lovers holding hands, laughing as they walk. He sees a man on a moped gesticulating to the driver of a car as they both negotiate the narrow street. He sees people sitting outside one of the many pizzerias in the late afternoon sunshine. He sees—

Castiel stops dead in the middle of the street.

He sees _Dean_. 

At first he thinks it’s a trick of his mind, or of the light, but no. It’s Dean Winchester in his flannel shirt and American jeans, sitting outside Luca’s favorite pizzeria sipping coffee from a cup that looks tiny in his hands. He’s too large here, somehow uncomfortable amid the fluid flow and bustle of this Neapolitan street. Castiel can’t stop staring.

And then Dean sees him and freezes, his cup halfway to his lips. 

All Castiel can think is, _something terrible must have happened to bring him here_.

***

Dean had almost given up hope. After three days of waiting, hoping that Cas would show up, Dean had almost given up and prayed. But suddenly Cas is right there, standing in the middle of the street and staring at him like he’s seen a freaking ghost. 

And the sight of him… Holy crap. 

Dean can’t lie to himself, not anymore; Cas looks hotter than hell in a slim leather jacket and white shirt, his hair all fucked-up and— He stops there, not wanting to imagine why his hair looks like he just got out of bed; he probably has. But it doesn’t matter. Luca be damned, Dean’s here to lay it on the line and he’s damn well gonna see it through. 

All those thoughts flit through his mind while Cas is standing like a rock in a stream, people flowing around him. But then he shakes himself, hurries forward, dodging around the tourists, and Dean is suddenly so nervous he can barely keep it together. He bangs his leg against the table as he stands up, almost knocking over his stupid little coffee. “Hey—”

“Dean, what’s wrong?” 

“What?” he says, taken aback by Cas’s urgency. “Nothing.”

Cas frowns. “Nothing?”

“No.” He swallows, feeling stupid now he’s standing here in this crazy foreign city, staring at Cas who looks like he just _belongs_ while Dean feels awkward and out of place. “I just—” he says. “I came to see you.”

Cas still looks doubtful. “Why? How did you even get here?” He looks around, wary. “Was it Crowley? Is he—?”

“No!” Dean sits back down; this is even harder than he’d imagined. “It wasn’t Crowley. I came on a plane.” 

Castiel stares. “An airplane?”

“No, a paper plane! Of course a freakin’ airplane.”

“You hate air travel.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, looking down at his coffee, “special occasion.” Then he lets out a breath, runs a hand through his hair. “Just sit down, man.”

Cas does, still looking unsure. “If you needed something,” he says in a low voice, “why didn’t you just pray?”

Dean swallows, squinting off into the busy street. “Because what I needed was to see you.”

“I would have come if you’d—”

“I _know_ ,” he snaps, and then grimaces. Christ, this is not how the conversation was meant to go. “I know you would,” he says more gently. “You always do, man. That’s why I wanted to come to you instead.”

“Ah-ha,” says a familiar voice, and Dean looks up at the waiter, Donato, who’s been side-eying, him for the last few days. “So your date has arrived at last?” he says with a grin.

“He’s not—” Dean cuts off the instinctive denial, irritated and ashamed of himself. 

But Cas’s frown deepens and he says, “At last? How long have you been waiting, Dean?”

“Not long.” 

Donato laughs and says something in Italian that makes Cas sit up in surprise. Dean thinks he can make out the word _tre_. It would be just like that smart-ass waiter to give him away.

But then Cas shakes his head, mutters something in Italian – God but it sounds hot in his gravelly voice – and Donato shrugs, looking skeptical. He says, “ _Vuoi del caffè, Castiel?_ ”

Cas nods. “ _Sì, grazie_.”

And then they’re left alone. Well, as alone as you can be on a pavement café in the middle of a narrow road with about a million people, occasional cars, and insane scooters drivers all over the place. The noise is incredible. And yet Cas is sitting there looking like he owns the place, all tanned and cool in his Italian get-up. 

Cas catches him looking and Dean feels an unfamiliar heat rise into his cheeks. God, he’s pathetic; he feels like a teenager on a date. Clearing his throat, he says, “You, uh, you got some new clothes.” And then he remembers that they’re probably Luca’s. Fuck.

But Cas glances down at himself with a small, pleased smile and says, “Do you like them? I bought them myself.”

“Yeah? You—”

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t,” Cas says, the smile disappearing. “I bought them because _I_ like them. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.”

And it’s such a strange, Cas thing to say that Dean finds himself engulfed by a huge wave of affection. “You’re right,” he says, smiling shakily, “it doesn’t matter what I think, man.”

Cas nods. “I know.”

“But, for what it’s worth, I think you look great.” And right then is when Cas catches his eye, and Dean can’t help it – everything he’s feeling pours out into that look and Cas stares right back with that wide-open expression of his and a little, confused crease between his eyebrows. If they were alone, Dean thinks, he’d just grab— He’d just—

And then Donato is setting down a coffee in front of Cas and saying something, with a wink, that makes Cas frown. 

He doesn’t look at Dean again, concentrates on his tiny coffee instead. “You still haven’t told me why you need to see me,” he says. “Is it something to do with Sam and your mother?”

And, Jesus, Dean supposes he’s earned that; eight years of taking the dude for granted, for using him like his own personal triple-A service, has made Cas imagine that emergency calls are all Dean thinks he’s good for. “Cas,” he says, sitting forward in his seat, “I didn’t get on a fucking plane to talk to you about my mom or my brother. Or to ask you to mojo up some spell, or help with research, or any of that shit.”

“Alright,” Cas says, looking up at him again.

“I, uh, I wanted to see you because I… I need to talk to you about something.”

Cas puts down his coffee very carefully, and, very carefully, he says, “But not about a case or—?”

“No,” he says. “Look, I know this isn’t a great time. I do. You’re with Luca and that—”

“I’m not,” Cas says. “We… We’re not together like that anymore.”

Dean stares. “He _dumped_ you?” The bastard.

“No,” Cas says with a little indignant frown. 

And apparently that’s all he’s going to say about it, which suits Dean just fine. “Okay,” he says, pressing his hands on the table, focusing. “Okay, so, uh that’s kinda what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Luca?”

“No,” Dean says, laughing more out of tension than humor. “No, I wanted to talk to you about…you. Me.” He clears his throat. “Us.”

Cas draws his hands into his lap and looks away, pained. He swallows. “Dean, I understand—”

“No, shut up, you don’t.” The bark in his voice draws a frown from the woman at the neighboring table. Dean lowers his voice. “Cas, I…” On the street – about three feet away – a scooter zooms past, someone yells an imprecation at the driver. Not far away a weird sounding police siren blares. Then the kid at the table behind them starts laughing so loud Dean feels like his ears might bleed. And he knows he can’t do this here, in the middle of the street, with the freakin’ waiter watching and the whole world just inches away. “Cas,” he says, “can we talk someplace else? Like, not in the middle of the damn street?”

“This wasn’t my idea,” Cas points out, finishing his coffee. 

“I know. Just— please?”

Cas gets to his feet, looks down at Dean with something of his old angelic impassivity as he pulls money from his pocket and puts it down on the table. “If you like,” he said, “we could talk in my hotel. It’s not far.”

“Sure,” Dean says and tells himself it means nothing. Cas inviting him back to his hotel is not a come-on, because this is Cas and he doesn’t do subtext. 

Cas turns, lifts a hand and calls, “ _Donato! Stammi bene!_ ”

Awkward, and in his crappy Italian, Dean calls, “ _Arrivederci. Grazie!”_ He’s sure the pronunciation is terrible, and sees Cas swallow a smile. “What?” he says. “I’m trying.”

“Yes,” Cas says, with a look that’s somewhere between bemused and wary, “I know.”

 

The place where Cas is staying is incredible. Dean’s jaw drops as Cas leads him up through a beautiful tiered garden built into the rocky cliffs, full of brilliant flowers, olive trees and pieces of ancient-looking statue. The building itself feels as old as the cliffs it clings to – Norman, Cas tells him – its arches and columns of cracked old stone painted in fading shades of terracotta.

“Jesus, Cas,” he murmurs as they walk along a colonnaded veranda toward his room. “How are you affording this place?”

Cas smiles as he unlocks his door. “I’ve spent enough time with you, Dean, to have learned a few tricks.”

“Yeah?” He can’t help feel a stupid sense of pride in his protégé. “Good for you, man. This is awesome.”

Cas opens the door and says, “Wait until you see the view.”

He’s not kidding. The room itself is simple: a white tiled floor, crisp white sheets on a large bed (not thinking about the bed), a couple of chairs. On the far side there’s an arched window without glass, framed by gauzy drapes, whose wooden shutters stand open to an uninterrupted view of the Bay of Naples and the rocky cliffs beyond. “Wow,” Dean says as he walks to the window. “This beats your average Motel 6.”

“Yes,” Cas agrees. 

Dean hears the door close but doesn’t look around. He just stands at the window and looks out across a sea so blue it makes the sky look pallid, breathes in the aromatic scent rising from the gardens below, and lets the warm sea breeze stir his hair. “Man, this is beautiful.”

“Italy’s a beautiful country.”

Dean grunts. “Makes me wonder why you spend so much time in freakin’ Kansas.”

Cas doesn’t answer, but Dean feels the tension rise. Because, of course, Cas has already told him why and Dean threw it back in his face. “Hey,” he says, turning away from the window, “I—”

He’s derailed by the sight of Cas shucking off his leather jacket and laying it on one of the chairs. Underneath, he’s wearing a slim-fitting white shirt that does all sorts of good things for the tanned skin of his forearms. Dean suddenly feels gauche in his mid-Western hunting gear and is struck with the horrible thought that all of this is hopeless. Cas is an _angel_. He’s eternal, he’s divine – and he looks _really_ fucking hot in that shirt. Why the hell would he want anything to do with—?

“We both know why I spent so much time in Kansas,” Cas says, turning around to face him with his chin lifted in a way that’s always meant _show me some respect_. “Is that what you wanted to talk about? Because I thought we’d already discussed it.”

And so this is it, Dean figures. This is the moment. He swallows, rubs his hands on the backs of his jeans. He’s warm; it’s too warm in here for his plaid shirt. He pulls it off, holds it wadded up in one hand. Cas is watching him with avid attention, but he’s still standing on the opposite side of the room, as if Dean is something dangerous. It’s quiet here, like Dean wanted, but now it feels too quiet and his voice, when he speaks, sounds too loud. “So, uh, yeah. About that… I’ve been thinking about it. What you said that day?” 

Cas doesn’t say anything, he’s just watching him. Waiting.

“Well, I…” He feels stupid holding his shirt, walks over and spends some time hanging it on the back of the chair near the bed. “Thing is,” he says, “what I said— It wasn’t true.” He’s not even looking at Cas, he’s still staring at his shirt on the back of the chair, so he makes himself turn around and face the music. “What I said about us being like brothers? It wasn’t true. You’re more than that to me. A lot more.”

And Cas can’t maintain his inscrutable expression any longer, but he doesn’t exactly look thrilled. If anything he looks hurt. “You _lied_? Why?”

“I didn’t. I wasn’t _lying_ , I just—” Dean pauses to regroup, reminds himself that this is Cas – he’ll have to explain better. “Okay, I _was_ lying, but not to you. I was lying to myself; I didn’t want to admit how I felt.”

“Because you were ashamed,” Cas says, chin lifted and a flash of defiance in his eyes. “You were ashamed of—”

“No!” Dean snaps. “I wasn’t ashamed.”

“Oh please,” he growls and stalks past Dean to stand at the window, staring out. “You think I don’t know you?” He takes a breath, bracing both arms on the window frame, lets his head fall forward. “I’ve wondered, sometimes, if my vessel had been female, whether things would have been different between us.”

Dean’s silent. This isn’t how he’d wanted the conversation to go, but he’s tired and never really had control of it in the first place. He sits heavily on the edge of the bed, pushes his fingers through his hair. He doesn’t know how to explain this to Cas; he’s barely able to understand it himself. But one thing he does know is this: “It’s not shame. I’m not ashamed.” He looks up, feels his heart-rate spike at the sight of Cas, framed in the window, golden sunlight burnishing his skin, bleeding through the white cotton of his shirt so Dean can see the outline of his body underneath – broad back, narrow hips. He looks beautiful. Dean tries to swallow, but his mouth is too dry. “I’m not ashamed of what I feel, Cas. I’m not ashamed of needing you.”

Cas shivers, like all his muscles are tensing at once. In a rough voice, he says, “Then why did you lie?”

“I wasn’t lying,” he says again, gets to his feet and takes a step closer. “I was stupid, confused, hung up on a load of crap. But I always—” Something in the pit of his stomach is trembling, some low, long-held desire. “Deep down I’ve always wanted this,” he says. “I’ve always wanted you. I just didn’t let myself.”

Cas doesn’t answer, but now that Dean’s closer he can see how his arms are shaking where they’re braced on the window frame. Cas takes a breath, but all he says is, “Dean…”

And he can’t stop himself. Reaching out an unsteady hand, Dean traces the firm line of Cas’s body, visible through his shirt, from his ribs down to his hips. Cas sucks in a sharp breath but doesn’t draw away. He doesn’t protest, either. It’s invitation enough and Dean steps in closer, drifts his hand across Cas’s stomach. His skin is warm through his shirt, shoulders rising and falling fast. Cas still has his head tipped forward and there are three little curls of hair behind his ear. Dean can’t stop staring at them. “It’s not shame,” he says in a harsh kind of whisper. “And it’s got nothing to do with the vessel you chose. It’s just that you’re so _much_ , and I’m… I’m just a man.”

“You’re _everything_ ,” Cas says, like it’s a confession. “To me, you’re everything, Dean.”

It pierces his soul, Cas’s need and honesty. It terrifies him, it awes him. “Cas,” he breathes, pulling him closer, nuzzling at those curls behind his ear, letting the tips of his fingers slide between the buttons of his shirt and onto the warm skin beneath. It’s the hottest thing he’s ever done; he’s vibrating with need and sucks in a sharp breath, breathing it out against Cas’s neck. “Cas,” he says again. “Castiel…”

With a soft sigh, a sound that tugs hard below the belt, Cas tips his head sideways so Dean can press his lips against the bolt of his jaw, against the slice of collarbone visible under the collar of his shirt. Dean’s never touched a guy like this and it’s intense, terrifying. Everything feels so new: the stubble of Cas’s jaw against his lips, the hard lines of muscle under his hand. It all feels like it’s the first time. 

“Dean,” Cas says, “you’re shaking.”

“So are you.”

“Are you afraid?”

He shakes his head, drags his lips under Cas’s ear. “No,” he murmurs, but it’s not entirely true. “Nervous, maybe. I’ve never done this with… with…”

“A man?” Cas guesses. “An angel?”

Dean presses a kiss into his hair. “With _you_ , doofus.”

“Oh,” Cas says, catching his breath as Dean slips loose one of the buttons on his shirt, then another. “ _Oh_ …”

“I want you,” Dean says, sliding a hand under his shirt, running his fingertips over the warding tattoo on Cas’s ribs, up and across the smooth muscles of his chest. “Show me how,” he murmurs. “Show me how, man.”

With a wordless sound, Cas turns around and for a moment they just look at each other. Cas is undone and beautiful, somehow both predatory and open. He runs his tongue over his lips, like he’s considering something, and Dean feels it right down at the base of his spine. And then Cas has his hand on the back of Dean’s neck, thumb against his cheek as he pulls him in and kisses him. There’s nothing hesitant about it, nothing timid, and it takes Dean a moment to respond, to curl his hand into Cas’s thick, dark hair – like he’s wanted to forever – to tug his head to one side to get a better angle. God, it’s perfect.

Cas makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, rolls his hips in, and Dean instinctively jerks away from the feel of him hard against his hip. But Cas catches Dean’s belt and holds him still, presses in again. “Okay?” he says. “Is this okay?”

And, yeah, it is. It’s actually freakin’ _hot_. It’s just so new. “It’s good,” Dean says and mirrors the roll of his hips, bringing them together. The sensation where they touch is… “ _Jesus_.” He feels like a sixteen year old on a fucking hair-trigger. 

“Mmm,” Cas agrees. And now he’s kissing the side of Dean’s neck and his hands have left his belt and are sliding under the hem of his t-shirt, skimming across his back. “Can I take off your shirt?”

“Fuck yeah.” 

Cas growls – he freakin’ _growls_ – in the back of his throat and pulls Dean’s shirt up and over his head in one swift motion. Then he puts a hand to Dean’s bare chest and starts walking him backward. “You have no idea,” he says, throwing the shirt aside, “how much I’ve wanted this, Dean.”

“I fucking do,” he says, catching hold of Cas’s shirt and pulling him along. 

The bed is right there and Dean hesitates when he feels it hit the back of his legs. Cas stops too, perhaps noticing Dean’s hesitation, because – fuck – are they really going to do this? 

“Dean,” Cas says in a voice that’s all scratched steel, “do you trust me?”

It’s a weighted question, with many layers lying heavy beneath those few words. Even so, the answer is simple. “Yes,” he says, looking him straight in the eye. “Always. In everything.”

Cas gives a little shudder – Dean can feel it where his palm is pressed to the center of his chest – and there’s something bright, like delight, shining in his eyes. He doesn’t smile, though. He just says, “Then don’t be nervous, Dean. I’ve got this.” And he kisses him again, a tender brush of his lips that jolts Dean to the core, sets lightning jumping across his skin. “I’ve got you,” he says as he pushes Dean down onto the bed. “I’ve always got you.”

And it’s tender, the way Cas touches him, it’s like he’s something precious. Something coveted. “Don’t have to be so gentle,” Dean says, running fingers through Cas’s hair, his heart so full it could fucking burst. “I won’t break.”

“I’m an angel,” Cas breathes. He’s trailing kisses down Dean’s chest, the scrape of his stubble against the soft skin of Dean’s stomach new and erotic. “I was built to worship.” 

Dean doesn’t even know where to begin with that.

Then Cas looks up; he’s reached Dean’s belt, slender fingers resting on the buckle. “Can I?” he says.

Dean nods, breathless as he watches. And, _Jesus_ , it’s too much. When Cas takes him into his mouth he barely holds it together, back arching, fingers clutching at Cas’s hair as he strangles a gasp. “Cas…”

“Hmm, sensitive,” Cas says in a voice entirely too sinful for a fucking angel of the Lord. 

Dean almost loses it completely. He has to drag Cas back up to kiss him, has to roll them over and take control, pinning Cas’s roving hands above his head while he unbuttons the rest of his shirt. “You’re a fast worker, dude,” he says and stoops to suck a mark into the skin of his collarbone. He grins when Cas gasps and bucks against his hips. “Hmmm,” Dean says. “Sensitive?”

Cas flexes his wrists where Dean has him pinned down, a little reminder that he could beat seven shades of shit out of him without breaking a sweat. “Do you want to find out?” he says, that beautiful face of his earnest as hell.

Dean swallows, because… “Yeah,” he says, and means it. He does. It’s just so new. 

“You don’t have to—”

“Shhh,” he says and starts on Cas’s buckle. “I want to, man.” So Cas helps, their fingers twining together, and they stay entwined when Dean touches him for the first time. It feels like— well, skin is skin, but it’s the way Cas throws his head back, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, that makes Dean’s heartrate rocket. And as he finds the right rhythm, hears the little gasps coming from the back of Cas’s throat, Dean thinks just watching him might be enough to—

“Wait.” Cas grabs Dean’s wrist. “Not like this.” 

Dean’s so caught up in the moment he can’t even speak, doesn’t protest as Cas flips them over again and kisses him, deep and intense, his whole body sliding over Dean’s. And then they’re moving together, the friction hot and delicious between them, and it’s building slow but so perfect it makes Dean want to scream or— 

“Dean?” Cas says, propping himself up on one elbow. His eyes are dark and full of angelic purpose, “Dean,” he says, “can I?” Dean doesn’t even know what he’s asking, hasn’t got breath to ask, just nods, and Cas reaches out to put his hand on Dean’s arm, on his shoulder. Right _there_. “Yes,” Cas breathes with a shudder. “Oh yes…” 

And something’s happening, something wild. Dean can feel it, a new intensity, everything heightening – the emotional, the physical, the sensual. “Oh fuck,” he hisses, going dizzy with it as they grind together, chasing release. “Oh _fuck_ …”

And then the room darkens, a shadow of great wings rising above them, the air stirring with power, as Cas gasps out, “Dean! Oh, God… _Dean_.” 

And it’s like a fucking earthquake. It rocks them both, pulsing through that point on Dean’s shoulder where they’re bonded, pitching him over the edge in an ecstatic release so intense it’s almost too much— It’s _everything_. “Cas,” he chokes out. “Castiel…”

And then Cas catches him in his arms, holding him close, sweat-slick and breathless as he whispers Dean’s name like a prayer against his neck, the gauzy curtains fluttering to earth in the aftermath.

It’s so fucking incredible, Dean could weep.

***

Much later, Castiel leans his shoulder against the window frame and looks out over the night-dark water. In the sky, a few stars glitter and, in the bay below, the ships wink back with their small, human lights. It’s beautiful, like all of God’s creation.

The air is cool now against his bare skin, stirring the drapes that hang next to the window, but he doesn’t mind. He enjoys these human sensations, each one a reminder of the path he’s chosen. As Luca advised, he’s learning to enjoy his vessel. 

Behind him, Dean is sleeping. 

He doesn’t need to look to know he’s there, doesn’t need to hear his steady breathing; he can feel him now like he never could before. Something has changed between them – the final connection made, the circle closed – and Castiel feels an immense sense of completion. Until it happened, he hadn’t realized how much he needed this physical bond with Dean. What he’d shared with Luca was only a pale shadow of this intimacy, and Castiel can’t deny he’s a little overwhelmed by the intensity of the emotions flowing through him.

Angels aren’t meant to feel this euphoric joy. 

His brothers and sisters, he knows, consider him lost, fallen, debased by his connection with Dean. They’ve taunted him with their contempt, with his weaknesses, and it has troubled him for a long time, left him feeling inadequate, useless – expendable. But now, standing here bathed in very human delight, he only feels pity for them. They’re the ones who are inadequate. They’re the ones who are weak, because they’ll never know the joy of loving with a human heart – they’ll never feel this exquisite glow of happiness – and they’ll never know why humans fight and die for the love of another.

Dean stirs, the bed sheets rustling as he gets up. Castiel doesn’t turn around, not even when he hears Dean padding across the tile floor. Not even when Dean slips his arms around his waist, pulls him back against his bare chest. He doesn’t speak, just rests his chin against Castiel’s shoulder, his head against Castiel’s temple. He rocks them a little, side-to-side, and Castiel runs his hands over Dean’s forearms, threads their fingers together and leans back into the strength of his embrace.

They stay like that for a long time, peaceful, gazing out over the lights of the bay, at the stars scattered above the cliffs. There’s so much to say, but Castiel thinks this tranquil silence speaks to what’s changed between them with far more eloquence than any words they could find.

At length, Dean turns his head to nuzzle against Castiel’s ear. “Come back to bed,” he murmurs, and pulls away without letting go of Castiel’s hand.

He lets himself be drawn back to the bed. They both know he doesn’t sleep, but that’s not really the point. As Dean makes room for him, his gaze falls just short of Castiel’s, as if this – his need for human contact – is somehow harder to express than his heated need for sex. It makes Castiel’s heart swell, that Dean is willing to show him this vulnerability, and he doesn’t comment as he climbs back under the covers and Dean wordlessly pulls him close.

He expects Dean to sleep again, but after a few minutes he says, “So, you think we set some alarm bells ringing in Heaven tonight?”

Castiel smiles into his chest. “The alarms started the moment I first touched you in Hell, Dean.”

“Yeah?” He sounds surprised, like he hadn’t known.

“This was…” He tries to explain it, tries not to be distracted by Dean’s fingers running along his arm. “What happened between us tonight – I mean, the sex,” he adds, for clarity.

Dean huffs out a laugh that stirs Castiel’s hair. “Yeah, that’s what happened.”

“You could consider it as the human equivalent of the connection we made when our bond was first forged.”

Dean shifts, moves so that he can look Castiel in the eye. “In Hell?”

“That’s right.”

“Are you saying we—? Dude, did we have freaky angel-sex in _Hell_?”

Castiel rolls his eyes at the idea. “No. Dean, humans experience and express intimate bonds physically. In Hell, neither of us was human. The bond we forged there wasn’t physical, it was numinous.”

“It was what?”

“Spiritual.” He sighs at the memory of that incandescent moment when his grace had reached for Dean’s soul and marked it, when he’d been marked by Dean. “It was powerful,” he says. “I had no idea what I was feeling, of course.” He smiles at his own naivety. “I had no idea what you’d done to me, Dean.” 

But Dean doesn’t smile; he’s frowning. “It was… It was like this? Intense like this?”

“Well, different. But, yes, just as profound.”

“And you—?” He looks concerned. “All this time, you remembered that and I didn’t?”

Castiel looks away, lets his head rest on Dean’s shoulder again. “I had a lot to learn too,” he reminds him. “I didn’t mind waiting.” 

It’s not entirely true, but he knows about white lies now and this feels like an appropriate moment. However, he learned to lie from Dean and Dean’s not buying it. “Cas… Man, I wish I’d— I should’ve—”

“Shhh…” Castiel silences him with a kiss at the corner of his mouth, another against his jaw. “It doesn’t matter.” 

Dean curls his fingers into his hair, tugs a little, and Castiel hums his approval. “But we could’ve had this for years,” Dean says against his lips. “ _Years_ , man.”

“We’ve got it for years to come.” He runs his fingers over Dean’s ribs, down to the curve of his hip, pressing him into the bed with deliberate intent. “We’ve got it _right now_.”

“Dude…” Dean huffs a breathy laugh. “Twice in one night? You’re like twenty years too late, buddy.”

“Mmmm,” Castiel says, nudging under Dean’s jaw to kiss the soft skin of his throat. “I can fix that.” 

Dean goes still. “Uh…what?”

With a smile that makes Dean’s pupils go very wide and dark, Castiel touches two fingers to his forehead. “It’s not cheating,” he says. “If you want to?”

“You’re allowed to do that?”

“ _Fallen_ angel, remember?”

Dean gives a slow curling grin. “Holy _fuck_ , Cas.”

“Yes,” Castiel says, as he lets his grace flow between them. “Exactly.”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who has taken the time to read, to leave kudos, or to comment, thank you so much. I really appreciate it - and I hope you enjoy this final instalment. :)

On reflection, he should probably have waited for Cas.

But it was only one vamp, and Dean had been crouching in the bushes outside the dilapidated old barn for what felt like freakin’ _hours_. And it was raining the kind of cold, steady rain that seeps into your clothes and sucks the heat from your marrow. He’d figured, if he didn’t go in and gank the damn thing, his hands would be too cold and wet to hold the machete.

Besides, he could hunt alone. He didn’t need Cas to hold his hand in a fight.

When the second vamp peels itself up from the mess of old rags in the corner of the barn, Dean realizes he’s made a mistake. When the third drops down from the rafters, he figures he’s screwed. The vamps are gonna kill him – and if they don’t, Cas probably will.

“Crap.”

He takes the head off one, a bag-of-bones girl who looks like she’s only just turned. He feels a beat of pity before he swings that’s lessened when she lunges, without finesse, for his throat. Amateur.

The other two are older, more wary. They circle him, keeping him turning in a slow three-sixty. One’s a woman, a used-up soccer mom still wearing her sensible training shoes. The other looks like he might once have been a biker, unless the leather, and the bike chain he’s wielding, is a new affectation. They both look hungry. Slim pickings for vamps, he figures, in Dyer (no pun intended), Arkansas. 

“Dean Winchester,” the biker says, baring his teeth. “I heard you was dead.”

“Yeah? Well, don’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

“I’d like me some of that Winchester blood. Pedigree.” 

Which is fucking creepy. “How about this?” Dean says. “I give you a five minute head start before I come after you and slice you like freakin’ sushi.”

“What’s the matter?” says the mom from behind him. “Don’t think you can take us, boy?”

He turns, tries to keep them both in sight, but they’ve done this before and they’re keeping on opposite sides of the circle. He swallows, feels his heart rate jump. Taken out by a couple of skanky vamps in the middle of Arkansas is not how he plans to go down.

The mom shows him her teeth a split second before she lunges. Dean swings his machete, but the vamp ducks to the side and the momentum throws his balance. He staggers, feels the lash of the bike chain across the top of his shoulders and falls forward, stumbling to keep his feet under him. He comes up, sweeping the blade in a wide arc. There’s pain striping across his back, blunted by adrenaline but still making his movements clumsy.

Crap.

The mom laughs, dances closer. He swings, she ducks, but he’s expecting it this time and reverses the faint to take her head off with a backhand blow. She drops like mutton, but not before the biker gets a fist in Dean’s jacket and yanks him backward and down, hard.

He hits the concrete, loses the breath from his lungs and the machete from his hand. It skitters across the floor. He lunges for it, too slow. The vamp drops, straddling him and pinning him down with the bike chain across his throat.

Dean scrabbles at the chain, but it ain’t moving. He’s starting to see stars.

“Now that weren’t real friendly, was it?” the vamp says, leering close with his bloody fangs on display. “And now I gotta—“

Suddenly there’s light bleeding past his teeth, from his eyes. And Cas is standing right behind him, his hand on the vamp’s head and his face all smoldering angelic fury. The vamp’s hands go slack on the chain, his head tilting back as he screams to the end. 

Dean scrambles out from under the body as it falls, wobbling to his feet with his eyes fixed on Cas. “Hey—”

It’s all he gets out before Cas grabs his shirt and shoves him against the barn’s rickety wall. The whole structure shivers. “You were meant to wait,” Cas growls, right up in Dean’s face. “That was the _plan_ , Dean.” 

“I was—”

“You were _reckless_.”

He gives a smile, brazens it out. Cas is fucking intimidating like this; Dean _loves_ it. He twitches an eyebrow. “I ever tell you how much it turns me on when you get all smity?”

Cas purses his lips, eyes blazing. “Dean—“

“It’s seriously hot, dude.”

Something shifts in Cas’s expression, the nature of the heat changing. His fist tightens on Dean’s shirt, eyes dipping to his mouth. “I shouldn’t reward this kind of rash behavior.”

Dean wets his lips, watches the way Cas’s eyes darken. Curling his fingers around his wrist, Dean strokes a thumb over his pulse point. “No…?”

And he can see the smile behind Cas’s eyes, heat pooling. “Damn it, Dean,” Cas growls and crushes their mouths together. 

Dean grins into the kiss, which only stokes Cas’s irritation, making him shove Dean harder against the wall as he presses in. But the jolt arcs fire across Dean’s shoulders where the bike chain got him and he hisses in pain. 

It kinda kills the mood.

Cas lets go, all concern. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing.” 

“Let me see.” He makes a grab for Dean’s shoulder, to turn him around, but Dean bats his arm away.

“Hey! We had this conversation, remember? I don’t need you to use your magic fingers every time I scrape a knee.”

“Dean—”

“I’m fine,” he says, more gently. “Hey?” Cas is scowling, head turned to one side and Dean takes his chin between his fingers to turn him back around. “You can take a look when we get back to the motel, okay? Fix me up the old fashioned way.”

Cas gives a disgruntled huff that’s not quite agreement and then looks down at the three bodies. “I suppose we should get rid of all this.”

Dean grimaces. It’s raining so hard there’s water dripping through the roof. “I’d say burn it, but…”

Cas squints up at the ceiling and says, “Wait for me outside.”

“What you gonna do?”

He gives him a sideways look. “Use my magic fingers.”

Despite the rain, the barn goes up like a torch and Cas strolls out of the burning building like it’s any other Tuesday. Dean tries not to look impressed, but he can tell by Cas’s barely-there smile that he knows he looks cool as fuck with the flames rising behind him, flickering in his eyes. 

“Show off,” Dean says as Cas joins him, but smiles so Cas knows he’s joking.

They slog back to the car shoulder-to-shoulder through the rain, mud sucking at their boots. “So how come you were late?” Dean says when he can see the Impala emerging from the darkness, glinting dully in the rain.

Cas sighs. “I was on the phone.”

“You were on the _phone_?” Dean stares at him. “Dude, I was freezing my ass off out here and you were on the phone?”

“With your _mother_ ,” Cas growls.

“Jesus,” Dean says. “Why?”

“Sam called— And then your mother wanted to talk to me. I didn’t want to be rude.”

Dean’s walking again, out of the mire and onto the asphalt – shame he can’t escape this freaky conversation so easy. “What did she want?”

There’s a silence and he looks back to find Cas stalled at the edge of the road. He’s wearing a heavy dark coat and has his hands in his pockets, staring down at the pavement. 

“Cas?”

He frowns and says, “I’m uncertain what she wanted. To make sure you’re okay, I think. Eating proper food, getting enough sleep...”

Dean lifts an eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”

“No. She’d read something about— I don’t know,” he sighs. “Vegetables.”

“It’s Sam,” Dean says with a shake of his head. “He’s screwing with her mind, turning her into a freak like him.”

Cas hums, but he’s still thoughtful.

“What?” Dean says, walking back toward him, hunching against the rain. “What else?” He knows there’s something; he’s getting better at reading Cas’s silences these days.

Cas looks up, still frowning. “She said I could call her ‘mom’ if I wanted to.”

“ _What_?”

He gives a helpless shrug. “That’s what she said.”

And Dean might feel more irritated by the whole thing if Cas didn’t look so amusingly bewildered. He chews on a smile and says, “So what did you tell her?”

“I— I said I thought that would be both strange and inaccurate.” He frowns. “I hope I didn’t offend her.”

Dean laughs, grabs Cas’s coat sleeve and tugs him toward the car. “Not a chance. I swear to God, this is Sam. He’s dicking with me, man. And now he’s got mom into the freakin’ game.”

Cas gives a grunt of agreement. “Sam certainly seems amused by our…”

“Yeah,” Dean says before Cas tries to name it. Truth is, there isn’t a word invented to describe whatever the fuck this is and Dean doesn’t need to invent one. It’s just him and Cas, it’s just them. That’s what it is.

“There was one other thing,” Cas says as they get into the car and Dean fusses around, trying to keep as much water off the seats as possible.

“Yeah?” he says, stashing their soggy coats in the foot well of the backseat.

“Sam said they’ve figured out how to repair the warding on the bunker. They’re heading back to Kansas in about a week.” He pauses. “He said we should meet them there, if we want.”

It feels like a bucket of cold water. “Right,” Dean says and tries to ignore the unease fluttering under his ribs. “Sure.”

He slides a look at Cas, feels his heart squeeze at the sight of him sitting there with rainwater glistening on his face, his hair damp and messy. 

_Back to reality_ , Dean thinks with a sinking stomach. _Honeymoon’s over._

 __He wishes it didn’t make him feel so antsy.

They’re staying at a Days Inn in Alma, just a couple miles along I-40, and leave their muddy boots outside the room as they head in. Dean’s moving stiffly, the bruising – or worse – across his shoulders is starting to seize up and he grimaces as he sits on the edge of one of the beds. The room has two beds, of course. It’s partly habit, but mostly it’s because they’re in freakin’ Alma, Arkansas and he doesn’t want to get into it with the dude on the desk. That’s just trouble he doesn’t need. Besides, this way, if they trash one bed they still have clean sheets to sleep in. 

Cas hangs their coats over the backs of the two chairs at the shitty little table by the window. He could probably dry them with a wave of his hand, but he doesn’t. Dean thinks he enjoys doing these human things, living life on a human scale. Like the way he eats now, even though he doesn’t need to, and sleeps. That is, Dean sleeps with him – he’s not sure Cas actually sleeps, although once or twice, when Dean’s stirred in the night, he’s seen him apparently out for the count. He wonders, sometimes, if he just leaves the vessel behind and zooms off on other angel business. He doubts that’s true, or possible, but he still wonders.

Just like he wonders how things will be when Sam and his mom are back at the bunker, when life returns to what passes for normal. Because, in his experience, normal means Cas off doing his thing and Dean sleeping alone in his windowless bedroom. It makes him cold to think about that, about going back to that.

But he’s still got a week before he needs to burn that bridge and pushes the thought out of his head. “You want to eat?” he says to distract himself.

“I want to look at your back,” Cas says. “Where you’re injured.”

He opens his mouth to argue, but actually it does hurt and… Well, fuck it, there’s something good about someone giving a damn. Someone other than his whiny brother. So he nods and unbuttons his shirt, wincing as he shucks it off.

“Here,” Cas says, coming to help him, pulling the shirt back and down his arms. He makes an unhappy noise. “Dean, you’re bleeding.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

“I wish you’d let me—”

“Just get the med kit from my bag,” Dean grouses. “Save the mojo for the big stuff.”

Cas huffs and puts a hand on the back of Dean’s neck as he gets up, warm and affectionate despite his irritation. “I don’t have a limited supply of ‘mojo’,” he grouses.

“C’mon,” Dean sighs. “We’ve been through this.” And maybe Cas doesn’t get it yet, but Dean figures he’ll just have to learn; this thing between them isn’t about Cas being a walking pocket knife/med kit/nuke, there to help out whenever needed. Dean doesn’t want that and, however much Cas might grouse, Dean doesn’t think Cas wants it either. They have to draw lines.

While Cas gets the med kit, Dean peels off his t-shirt. It sticks where the blood has soaked in and he hisses as he pulls it free. Peering over his shoulder, he sees a nasty welt, the skin gashed open in a couple of places. Quite deep at one end, but Sam’s sewn worse closed with dental floss.

Lips pursed, Cas comes back to the bed. He’s wearing a muddy-green t-shirt that rumples a little over his belt and brings out the blue of his eyes, and Dean thinks, _fuck_. He’s so gorgeous, sometimes, Dean literally catches his fucking breath.

He wonders how he didn’t notice it before, and thinks perhaps he did but just kidded himself that the skipping sensation in the pit of his stomach was something else. 

“What?” Cas says as he sits down behind him, one leg bent so he can scooch up close. 

“Just you,” Dean says with a smile, and runs his hand over Cas’s knee where it’s pressed up next to his thigh.

In answer, Cas touches his hand to Dean’s waist, to the bare skin there, and says, “This might sting when I clean it. The wound is— It’s not a clean cut, it’s all jagged.”

“Just do your best.”

Two fingers press into his shoulder. “My best would be—”

“Cas…”

“Alright!” He huffs out a sigh. “You’re a stubborn man, Dean Winchester.”

“It’s been said.”

Dean flinches as Cas gets to work, the sterile wipes stinging into the wound, but leaves his hand on Cas’s leg, runs his thumb along his knee. They’re silent for a while, the only sound the tick-tick of the heater and the muted noise of the TV bleeding through from next door. An occasional car rolls past outside, but they’re in the butt end of nowhere and there isn’t much traffic. 

When Cas is done, he zaps out to pick up takeout while Dean showers off the mud as best he can. They eat shoulder-to-shoulder on the bed, watching crappy TV until Dean starts falling asleep with his head on Cas’s shoulder. It’s a pretty perfect end to the day.

 

Although Castiel doesn’t need to sleep, he enjoys sharing Dean’s bed. It’s self-indulgent, perhaps, but he knows Dean enjoys it too – he can feel it in the peaceful wash of his dreams, the way he wraps himself around Castiel while he sleeps.

It’s as intimate as the sex they share, these silent dream spaces, and Castiel relishes the privilege. After so many years of lingering mistrust, to be granted these moments of complete confidence feels like the highest honor.

And Castiel is learning the art of feigning sleep, of allowing his body to relax like Dean’s, his breathing to slow, his mind to drift – if not in his own dreams, at least in his own thoughts. It’s meditative and he relishes the time to explore. Reflection is not something that was ever encouraged in angels, and since he’s been walking the Earth, he’s rarely had time or incentive to examine his own mind. But now, with Dean safe and warm beside him, he is free to let his mind wander. He thinks it’s probably healthy.

It doesn’t mean that he’s unaware, however. Each noise in the room registers, each shift of Dean next to and around him. When Dean rolls over, stumbles out of bed to pee, half-asleep, Castiel lays still. It’s not like he’s pretending to sleep, it’s just that he knows Dean prefers to come back to bed and fall back to sleep without entirely surfacing. This isn’t the time for conversation.

So he’s surprised when Dean climbs into bed and doesn’t wrap himself around Castiel and go to sleep. Instead he settles a few inches away, his breathing careful, watching.

Dean is watching him ‘sleep’.

Castiel remembers, when he’d been very new to humanity, being fascinated by Dean’s sleep – the way he’d lay there so still and vulnerable, his mind lost in its own meanderings. He’d often watched him sleep, until Dean had told him to stop. He hadn’t understood why, at the time. Now, he realizes, it was too intimate. He hadn’t earned the right.

It makes him feel warm, pleased in a human way, that not only does he now have the right but that Dean has taken that right for himself.

He’s surprised, though, when Dean reaches over and touches his fingers to Castiel’s hair. He brushes it back from his face so gently, so tender for hands that have known such violence. And then he feels Dean’s lips on the top of his shoulder, less of a kiss and more of a lingering pressure, a closeness, as Dean breathes “I love you” against Castiel’s bare skin.

He can’t stay still any longer, opens his eyes and sees Dean’s face cast in shadows thrown by the light seeping in through the room’s thin curtains. His head is propped up on one hand, his other threading through Castiel’s hair. He doesn’t look surprised, although he looks a little sheepish; this affection between them is still new, harder for Dean to acknowledge than the passion they share for each other. 

Castiel finds both equally compulsive. He lifts a hand to Dean’s cheek, rubs the pad of his thumb over the stubble on his jaw. Dean leans into his touch, turns his head to press his lips against Castiel’s palm. But there’s an uneasy frown creasing his brow, a heaviness about him that Castiel can feel. “What’s the matter?” he says, drops the words into the quiet space between them.

Dean just shakes his head. 

“Dean...”

The hand in Castiel’s hair moves down to his cheek, brushes over his lips. Dean’s eyes, always bright, are shining with emotion tonight – the kind of feeling he’d never reveal in daylight. But here, in the tender darkness, he lets it out. “I—” Castiel can see Dean’s throat work when he swallows. “It scares the crap outa me, man, how much I need you.”

“Come here,” Castiel says, and pulls him down and into his arms. He runs a hand over Dean’s back, keeps his fingers light on the wound he’d cleaned earlier. It’s tempting to let a thread of his grace knit the flesh together, but Dean has asked him not to and he has to respect his wishes.

“I don’t want things to change,” Dean says, his head heavy against Castiel’s chest and the fingers of one hand tracing the lines of the warding sigil Castiel has inked beneath his ribs. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“I’m not leaving.”

Dean turns his head, presses an open-mouthed kiss against Castiel’s collarbone. “You always leave,” he says quietly, breathes it into his skin. “You always leave, Cas.”

He stills, puzzling through the statement. So much has changed between them, he doesn’t know why Dean thinks— Unless... He remembers Dean’s unease when he’d told him that Sam and his mother were returning. “Is this about going back to the bunker?”

Dean lets out a sigh. “It’ll be different, back there.”

“What will?” 

“Everything.”

Castiel slides his fingers through Dean’s hair, presses his lips to the frown creasing his brow. “Not this.” 

“Won’t it?”

“Of course not.”

“But you—” Dean looks up. They’re very close now, both whispering as if they weren’t alone in the room. Dean looks like he’s trying to say something he can’t shape into words, and, in the end, he looks away before he speaks. “You’ll have your own stuff to do. Angel stuff – whatever. And I’ll have my crap to deal with.” 

Castiel feels a flutter of old panic, the instinctive flight reaction that sets his wings bristling, but he pushes it aside. Everything is different now. He brushes his fingertips over Dean’s knuckles where his hand rests against Castiel’s hip, runs them across the back of his hand and up his arm until he fits his palm against the faint scar he left on Dean’s bicep. The connection that arcs between them is alive, electric. 

Dean sucks in a shivering breath, turns with a soft moan to press his lips under Castiel’s jaw.

Curling his fingers into Dean’s hair, he says, “Don’t you understand? Even when we’re apart, we’ll be together now, Dean.”

“God, Cas...” Dean kisses his jaw, the curve of his ear, his mouth. “I love you,” he breathes it into the kiss they share. “I love you,” he breathes against his jaw, his throat, speaks it into the soft skin of his stomach, the curve of his hip. “I love you.”

Castiel closes his eyes. “Forever,” he says. “And always.” 

_Until the end of creation._

_Until the end of time, Dean Winchester_.

~The End~

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading! You can find me on Tumblr as enochian-things, so come and say hi! :)


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